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THE 






HUMAN" SPECIES. 






rv 



BY 



A. DE QUATREFAGES, 



PROFE830R OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, PARIS. 




NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 AND 551 BROADWAY. 

1879. 




Is 



o 



bC 



A 






CONTENTS. 



BOOK I. 

UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 



EMPIRES AND KINGDOMS OF NATURE. — THE HUMAN KINGDOM. — 

ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHOD 1 



CHAPTER IT. 

GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES ; MONOGENISM AND POLY- 

GENISM 30 



CHAPTER III. 

SPECTES AND RACE IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES .... 35 



CHAPTER IV. 

NATURE OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE RACES ; 

APPLICATION TO MAN 41 



CHAPTER V. 

EXTENT OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE RACES ; 

APPLICATION TO MAN 47 



vi Contents, 

CHAPTER VI. 

PAOK 
INTERCROSSING AND FUSION OF CHARACTERS IN ANIMAL RACES ; 

APPLICATION TO MAN ........ 56 



CHAPTER VII. 

CROSSING OF RACES AND SPECIES IN THE ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 

KINGDOMS. — MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS 63 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CROSSING BETWEEN VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL RACES AND SPECIES ; 

MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS ; REALITY OF SPECIES . . . 70 



CHAPTER IX. 

CROSSING BETWEEN HUMAN GROUPS. — UNITY OF THE HUMAN 

SPECIES 85 



BOOK II. 

OPJGIN" OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER X. 

ORIGIN OF SPECIES. — HYPOTHESES OF TRANSMUTATION. — DARWINISM 89 

CHAPTER XI. 

ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. — DIFFERENT HYPOTHESES . . 104 



Contents. vii 

BOOK III. 

ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

AGE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.— PRESENT GEOLOGICAL EPOCH . . 129 

CHAPTER XIII. 

AGE OP THE HUMAN SPECIES. — PAST GEOLOGICAL EPOCHS . .142 



BOOK IV. 

ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AGASSIZ'S THEORY.— CENTRES OF CREATION 154 

CHAPTER XV. 

PROGRESSIVE LOCALISATION OF ORGANISED BEINGS. — CENTRES OF 

APPEARANCE. — ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF MAN . . .168 



BOOK V. 

PEOPLING OF THE GLOBE. 
CHAPTER XVI. 

MIGRATIONS BY LAND. — EXODUS OF THE KALMUCKS FROM THE 

VOLGA 179 



viii Contents. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGE 

MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — POLYNESIAN MIGRATIONS. — MIGRATIONS TO 

NEW ZEALAND 185 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — MIGRATIONS IN AMERICA . ... 199 



BOOK VI. 

ACCLIMATISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
CHAPTER XIX. 

INFLUENCE OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND RACE . . . .214 

CHAPTER XX. 

CONDITIONS OF ACCLIMATISATION . 224 

BOOK VII. 

PEIM1TIVE MAN.— FORMATION OF THE HUMAN RACES. 

• 

CHAPTER XXI. 

PRIMITIVE MAN 239 

CHAPTER XXII. 

FORMATION OF HUMAN RACES UNDER THE SOLE INFLUENCE OF 

CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND HEREDITY . . . . . 244 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

FORMATION OF MIXED HUMAN RACES 260 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

INFLUENCE OF CROSSING UPON MIXED HUMAN RACES . . . 276 



Contents, ix 

BOOK VIII. 

FOSSIL HUMAN RACES. 
CHAPTER XXV. 

PAG3 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 287 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE CANSTADT RACE 302 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE CRO-MAGNON RACE 311 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

RACES OF FURFOOZ 337 



BOOK IX. 

PRESENT HUMAN KACES.— PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. 

— « — 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. — EXTERNAL CHARACTERS . . . 349 

CHAPTER XXX. 

ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS 370 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS 409 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS . . 422 



x Contents. 

BOOK X. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PAGE 

INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS , 431 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

MORAL CHARACTERS . . 459 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS ........ 473 



THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



BOOK I. 

UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER I 



EMPIRES AND KINGDOMS OF NATURE. — THE HUMAN 
KINGDOM. — ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHOD. 

I. The naturalist who meets with an object for the first 
time, instinctively asks the question : — What is this object ? 
This question leads to another : — With what other objects 
shall I class it ? To what group, and, in the first place, to 
what kingdom does it belong ? Is it a mineral, a plant, or 
an animal ? 

The answer is not always easy. We know that, in what 
may be called the basis of each kingdom, there are ambigu- 
ous forms, whose nature has long been, and still is, the sub- 
ject of contention among naturalists. We know that polyps 
were long regarded as plants, and that nullipores, at first 
taken for polyps, are now divided between the vegetable and 
mineral kingdoms ; and, finally, we know that even now, 
botanists and zoologists dispute over certain diatoms and 
transfer them from one kingdom to the other. 

Similarly the question has been asked : — What is man ? 
and it has been answered from several points of view. To 
the naturalist it has but one meaning, and signifies, in which 
kingdom must man be placed ? or better : is man an animal? 



2 The Human Species. 

In spite of all the differences which a comparison of man 
with the mammalia presents, should he be classed with 
them ? This question is similar to that which Peysonnel 
is said to have asked himself, when, struck by the special 
phenomena presented by the coral, he asked himself whether 
the object before him was a vegetable. 

It is evident that, in order to solve the first problem which 
arises from a study of the natural history of man, we must 
have a clear idea what are these great groups of beings, 
which are called kingdoms ; we must give an account of 
the characters which distinguish and separate them from 
each other, and then of their true scientific meaning. It 
will be sufficient for the purpose to explain the well-known 
laws of Linnseus, supplementing the theory of the immortal 
Swede by some ideas borrowed from Pallas and de Candolle, 
and by one of the fundamental conceptions which Adamson 
and A. L. de Jussieu have almost equally contributed to in- 
troduce into science. 

II. It is impossible for anyone, whether learned or otherwise, 
not to recognise at once the difference between two kinds of 
objects very distinct from each other : inanimate bodies and 
organised beings. These are the two groups into which 
Pallas has divided kingdoms under the name of empires. 
Their distinction is generally easy, and I shall confine my- 
self to recalling some of the most essential differences. 

Inanimate bodies, when placed under favourable circum- 
stances, last for an indefinite, time, neither taking nor giving 
anything to the surrounding world ; organised beings, under 
whatever conditions they are placed, only last for a fixed 
period of time, and, during this existence, undergo every 
moment losses of substance which they repair by means of 
materials taken from without. Inanimate bodies, even 
when they assume the fixed and definite form of crystals, 
are formed independently of all other bodies resembling 
them ; they have from their commencement fixed forms, 
and increase simply by superposition of new layers. Every 
organised being is connected either directly or indirectly 



Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 3 

with a similar being, in the interior of which it first appeared 
in the form of a germ, then grew and acquired its definite form 
by intussusception. 

In other words, filiation, nutrition, birth and death, are so 
many characteristics of the organised being, of which no 
trace is found in inanimate bodies. I agree with Pallas in 
making inanimate bodies compose the Inorganic Empire, 
and organised beings the Organic Empire. 

I must here make an observation, the importance of which 
will be easily understood. 

The existence of the two groups which have been recog- 
nised by the good sense of the general public as well as by 
the science of Pallas, is a fact absolutely independent of all 
hypothesis. Whatever explanation we may propose to ac- 
count for the differential phenomena which distinguish them, 
these phenomena will not the less exist ; the inanimate body 
will never be an organised being. 

To attemptj under any pretext whatever, to reconcile or 
confound these two kinds of objects with each other, is to 
go in direct opposition to all the progress made for more 
than a century, and especially during the last few years, in 
physics, chemistry and physiology. It is inexplicable to me 
that some men, whose merits I otherwise acknowledge, 
should have recently again compared crystals to the simplest 
living forms, to the sarcodic organisms, as they were called, 
by Dujardin, who discovered them, and was the first to give 
a comprehensive theory of them from minute observations. 
A change of name is useless ; the things remain the same, 
and protoplasm has the same properties as sarcode. The 
animals, whose entire substance they seem to form, have not 
altered their nature ; whether monera or amoebce, these 
forms are the antipodes of the crystal from every point of 
view. 

A crystal, as M. Naudin has well remarked, closely re- 
sembles one of those regular piles of shot which may be seen 
in -every arsenal. It only increases from the exterior, as the 
pile is increased when the soldier adds a fresh layer of shot ; 



4 The Human Species. 

its molecules are just as immovable as the balls of iron. It 
is exactly the contrary with the organised being, and the 
simpler its composition the greater the contrast. The small 
size of the moneron and the amoeba prevents, it is true, 
certain observations. I appeal, however, to all those natu- 
ralists who have studied certain marine sponges in a living 
state. They must like myself have remarked the strange 
activity of the vital whirlpool in the semi-sarcodic substance 
which surrounds their siliceous or horny skeleton ; they will 
have seen the sea water in which they are placed move with 
a rapidity which it never exhibits when in contact with any 
other animal. 

The reason is that, in the organised being, the repose of 
the crystal is replaced by an incessant movement ; that, 
instead of remaining immovable and unalterable, the mole- 
cules are unceasingly undergoing transformation, changing 
their composition, producing fresh substances, retaining some 
and rejecting others. Far from resembling 3, pile of shot, 
the organised being may much rather be compared to the 
combination of a number of physico-chemical apparatus, 
constantly in action to burn or reduce materials borrowed 
from without, and ever making use of their own substance 
for its incessant renewal. 

In other words, in the crystal once formed the forces 
remain in a state of stable equilibrium, which is only in- 
terrupted by the influence of exterior causes. Hence the 
possibility of its indefinite continuance without any change 
either of its forms or of its properties. In the organised 
being the equilibrium is unstable, or rather, there is no equi- 
librium properly so called. Every moment the organised 
being expends as much force as matter, and owes its con- 
tinuance solely to the balance of the gain and loss. Hence 
the possibility of a modification of its properties and form 
without its ceasing to exist. 

Such are the bare facts which rest upon no hypothesis what- 
ever; and how can we, in the presence of these facts, compare 
the crystal which grows in a saline solution to the germ which 



Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 5 

becomes in succession embryo, foetus, and finally a complete 
animal ? How can we confuse the inanimate body with the 
organised being. 

The two groups are easily separated by the phenomena 
they exhibit. It is the same with the causes of the phe- 
nomenon. 

Naturalists and physiologists are here divided. Some 
would have it that the cause, or the causes, are identical, 
and that conditions, which are almost accidental, alone de- 
termine the difference in the results by changing their mode 
of action. In their opinion the formation of a crystal or of 
a moneron is only a question of resultant. 

Others consider living beings as the result of a cause 
entirely different from those which act in inanimate bodies, 
and refer to this cause alone everything which takes place 
in these beings. 

These two methods appear to me, from the exclusive 
element in each, to be equally ill-founded. It cannot be 
denied that phenomena identical with those characteristic 
of inanimate bodies are found in organised beings, and we 
have, therefore, no scientific reason to attribute them to 
different causes. 

But organised beings have also their special phenomena 
radically distinct from, or even opposed to, the former. Is it 
possible to refer all of them to one, or to several, identical 
causes ? I think not. For this reason, I admit with a great 
number of eminent men of every age and country, and, I 
believe, with the majority of those that respect modern 
science, that organised beings owe their distinctive charac- 
teristics to a Special Cause, to a Special Force, to Life, 
which in them is associated with the inorganic forces. For 
this reason I consider it legitimate to call them Living 
Beings. 

I shall often, however, return to this class of considera- 
tions, in order to make it quite clear in what sense I take 
these words, Force, and Life. 

III. The two Empires of Pallas are themselves sub- 



6 The Hitman Species, 

divided into Kingdoms, which are characterised by special 
facts and phenomena, becoming more and more complicated 
as we ascend the scale of nature. 

And, in the first place, I distinctly admit with de Candolle 
the existence of a Sidereal Kingdom. To any one who 
considers, as far as we are able, the little that we know of 
the universe, the celestial bodies, suns, planets, and comets 
or satellites only appear as molecules of the great All which 
fills indefinite Space. One general phenomenon which is 
unchangeable, however varied in its forms, is, as it were, the 
attribute of these bodies. All, whether gaseous or solid, 
obscure or luminous, hot or cold, move within curves of the 
same nature, obeying the laws discovered by Kepler. It is 
now well known th&t fixed stars do not exist. 

In order to explain this phenomenon philosophers have 
admitted the existence of a force w T hich they have called 
Gravitation, the effect of which is to precipitate the stars 
towards -one another, as if they mutually attracted each other, 
whilst obeying the laws of Newton. Now it is well known 
that the great Englishman himself gave no opinion upon the 
mode of action of this force, and that he hesitated between 
the hypothesis of Attraction and that of Impulsion. The 
first should prevail as being more in accordance with the 
immediate results of observation ; but the second also has 
had serious partisans, among whom I will only mention 
M. de Tessan. 

Thus Newton, in spite of all his genius, cannot tell us 
what was the cause of the movement of the stars ; he was 
not even able to determine the immediate mode of action of 
this cause ; and yet there is not a scientific term more 
universally received than that of Gravitation, there is not a 
case in which the expression Force is more generally ac- 
cepted. The reason of this is, that in the presence of 
general facts and groups of phenomena, it is necessary to 
make use of terms as simple as possible. We must, however, 
avoid the delusion of thinking that' naming is equivalent to 
explaining. 



Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 7 

In cases analogous to that of which we have been treating, 
the word Force merely indicates the presence of an Un- 
known Cause, which gives rise to a group of fixed pheno- 
mena. In assigning names to each of the Forces or 
Unknown Causes to which we consider ourselves able to 
refer certain groups of phenomena, we facilitate the demon- 
stration and discussion of the facts. The scientific man 
knows very well that he cannot go beyond this. 

It is in this sense, and in this sense alone, that I have 
used above the expressions Force and Life. Astronomers 
consider gravitation the unknown cause of the movement of 
the stars; I consider Life as the unknown cause of the 
phenomena which are characteristic of organised beings. 
It may be that both gravitation and Life, as well as the 
other general forces are merely as x, of which the equation 
has not yet been discovered. I shall presently return to 
these considerations. 

Be this as it may, whatever our real ignorance, whatever 
the Cause of which we are here treating, and though Im- 
pulsion should one day replace Attraction in our Theories, 
the facts would still remain the same. The stars would 
still be distributed through space, and subject to the laws of 
Newton and Kepler ; they would still constitute a perfectly 
distinct whole, in the part assigned to the bodies which 
compose it, and in the nature of the relations which unite 
them. They would still form the Sidereal Kingdom. 

This kingdom is then characterised by a general phe- 
nomenon, the Keplerian Movement, which may be attri- 
buted to a single force, namely that of gravitation. 

IY. Let us now return to the Earth, the only celestial 
body which we can study in detail. Modem discoveries, 
however, judging from the relation of the elements and their 
mutual action, make it almost certain that the greatest 
similarity exists between the stars distributed in space, 
between all those at least which form part of our heavens. 

Let us first establish the fact that upon our globe we 
again meet with the Keplerian Movement in falling bodies. 



8 The Human Species. 

Attraction is here represented by Weight. Gravitation re- 
appears with all its laws, acting upon grains of dust as it 
acts upon worlds. The parts of the whole, of cosmos, as 
Humboldt would have said, cannot escape from the force 
which governs the whole. 

But upon the surface of our Earth and in its interior, as 
far as we have been able to penetrate either by direct 
observation or scientific induction, we notice the appearance 
of other movements which are not subject to the laws of 
Kepler or Newton ; phenomena appear which are entirely 
new and perfectly distinct from those due to gravitation. 
They are the "physico-chemical phenomena. From their 
number and their difference in character they were long 
attributed to the action of distinct forces which were called 
Electricity, Heat, Magnetism, etc. Modern science, however, 
by transforming, so to speak, one into the other, has demon- 
strated their original unity. Physicists refer them all to 
nothing more than so many manifestations of the undula- 
tions of ether. The vibration of the latter is then the 
fundamental phenomenon from which all the others rise. 

But this ether is absolutely hypothetical; its nature is 
perfectly unknown ; no one knowing whence it acquires 
this quantity of movement, which, according to actual 
theory, should be subject neither to increase nor diminution. 
Now, in reality, we have here the Unknown cause of all 
physico-chemical phenomena. For this reason, and also for 
convenience, we shall give a name to this unknown cause, 
to this force, and call it Etherodynamy (Etherodynamie). 

But is not Etherodynamy only a particular form, a simple 
modification, or an effect of gravitation ? Are not these 
two forces only different manifestations of a more general 
force % Many eminent men are much inclined to admit 
one or other of these hypotheses. Still, up to the present 
time, the facts do not seem to me to shew much agreement 
with them. Etherodynamy is displayed even in space and 
among the stars by variable, localised and temporary pheno- 
mena; the action of gravitation is one, universal and 



Empij'es and Kingdoms of Nature. 9 

constant. Man has always been able to exercise a certain 
amount of control over the former ; he can produce at will 
light and heat ; modern science cannot act upon the second. 
We can neither augment nor diminish, reflect or refract, or 
polarise weight ; we cannot arrest its action. Even in the 
fall of bodies the regularity in the acceleration of the motion 
proves that the cause of this movement is subject to no 
alteration. Here then is no transmutation of force similar 
to that in a machine worked by electricity or heat. 

But whatever be the progress of science, and though M. 
de Tessan's theory should be confirmed by experiment, the 
difference between the phenomena would not be diminished ; 
the conclusions to be drawn from the facts in connection 
with the question we are here discussing would remain the 
same. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the physico- 
chemical phenomena produced by etherodynamy can act 
upon masses or be exclusively molecular. They are in all 
cases similar to those which depend upon gravitation, they 
are subject to invariable laws and are always repeated in 
a similar manner when produced under similar circum- 
stances. 

. No antagonism, it is true, exists between gravitation and 
etherodynamy. It is no less true that the action of the 
first is always disturbed in a peculiar manner by that of the 
second, and that in some phenomena it seems as if the 
latter would neutralise the former. This fact is most 
strikingly shown in some of the commonest experiments in 
physics. The gold leaves of the electroscope separate, the 
pith-balls are attracted towards electrified bodies in spite 
of their weight, and are repelled with a rapidity greater 
than that which would result merely from their own weight. 
And yet these bodies have no more ceased to possess weight 
than those masses of iron raised by the powerful magnets of 
M. Jamin. Etherodynamy in these two cases merely 
overcame gravitation and either modified or imitated its 
action. 



io The Human Species. 

Those terrestrial bodies which present no other pheno- 
mena than those which can be referred to either gravita- 
tion or etherodynamy have, since the time of Linnaeus, been 
termed Inanimate Bodies. Together they constitute the 
Mineral Kingdom. We see that the existence and the 
distinction of this group are perfectly independent of any 
hypothesis intended to explain the phenomena. 

Two lands of phenomena then are characteristic of the 
mineral kingdom : phenomena of the Keplerian movement 
and physico-chemical phenomena, which may be attri- 
buted to the action of two forces : gravitation and ethero- 
dynamy. 

V. The sidereal and mineral kingdoms form the Inorganic 
Empire. Passing from it we enter the domain of organised 
and living beings. We have already seen the essential phe- 
nomena by which they are distinguished. These phenomena 
differ essentially from all those which we have observed in 
inanimate bodies. It seems to me, therefore, necessary to 
attribute them to a special cause, — to Life. 

I know that in the present day any one making use of 
this word is readily accused by a great number of physicists 
and chemists, and by an entire physiological school, of in- 
troducing into science a vague and almost mysterious expres- 
sion. There is, however, nothing in it more vague or mys- 
terious than in the word gravitation. 

It is very true that we do not know what Life is ; but no 
more do we know what the force is that set the stars in 
motion and retains them in their orbits. If astronomers 
have been right in giving to the force, or unknown cause, 
which gives the worlds their mathematical movements, 
naturalists have a perfect right to designate by a special 
term that unknown cause which produces filiation, birth 
and death. 

It will be apparent that my idea of Life is not the same 
as it was with many ancient vitalists, that it is no more the 
arche of van Helmont than the vital principle of Barthez. 
Its function appears to me very different to that attributed 



Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 1 1 

to it by most of our predecessors, and which is still attributed 
to it by some physiologists. 

Far from merely animating the organs, it is closely asso- 
ciated with the forces of which we have already spoken. Living 
beings are heavy, and therefore subject to gravitation ; they 
are the seat of numerous and various physico-chemical phe- 
nomena which are indispensable to their existence and which 
must be referred to the action of etherodynamy. But these 
phenomena are here manifested under the influence of 
another force. It is for this reason that the results of these 
phenomena are often quite different to those in inanimate 
bodies, and that living beings have their special products. 
Life is not antagonistic to the inanimate forces, but it governs 
and rules their action by its laws. Therefore it makes them 
produce tissues, organs and individuals instead of crystals ; 
it organises germs, and maintains through space and time,' 
in spite of the most complex metamorphoses, that unity of 
definite living forms which we call Species. 

If the anti-vitalists would only seriously reflect upon the 
matter, they would acknowledge that, considered from this 
point of view, there is nothing more mysterious in living 
beings than in some of the commonest phenomena presented 
by inanimate bodies. The intervention of Life as a modify- 
ing agent of actions purely etherodynamic may be as easily 
admitted as that of etherodynamy itself modifying and over- 
coming the action of weight. It is just as strange to see a 
piece of iron attracted and supported by a magnet, as to see 
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen combine and dispose 
themselves so as to form an animal or vegetable cell instead 
of any imaginable inorganic composition. 

I have repeatedly, and for many years, maintained the doc- 
trine which I have summed up here. It seems to me confirmed 
in the highest degree by the researches undertaken for the 
elucidation of the problem of which we are treating. The 
experiences of M. Bernard in particular, relative to the 
action exercised by anaesthetics upon plants as well as upon 
animals, makes it impossible for us to doubt for a moment 



12 The Human Species. 

the intervention of an agent distinct from physico-chemical 
forces in organic beings. In employing the word Life to 
designate this agent, I only make use of an established 
expression, without pretending to go beyond the information 
gained from experiment and scientific observation. 

Beings, in which life alone is added to gravitation and 
etherodynamy constitute the Vegetable Kingdom. Now 
there is one general fact displayed by this group, the 
significance of which has not, it seems to me, been suffi- 
ciently understood. With the exception of certain pheno- 
mena of unconscious irritability which have long been 
known in some plants of a superior order, and of facts, pro- 
bably of the same class, which have been established chiefly 
with reference to some reproductive organs of plants of an 
inferior order, every movement which takes place in plants 
appears to be produced solely by inanimate forces. The 
transfer of matter in particular, which is necessary for the 
development and sustenance of every vegetable, belongs to 
actions of this kind. Can we believe that these forces, as 
they are known to us from innumerable experiments, could, 
if left to themselves, have formed an oak, or even raised a 
mushroom ? Can we believe that they could have organised 
the acorn or the spore, and hidden in those minute bodies 
the power of reproducing the parent? And yet without 
them the vegetable cannot exist. But, in my opinion, 
nothing makes their real subordination more apparent than 
the importance of their part in the process of execution. 
They may be compared to workmen raising an edifice under 
the eye of the architect who has made the plan. 

Are we then to conclude that life is an intelligent force, 
conscious of the part it plays, and enjoying the dominion it 
exercises over the subordinate inanimate forces ? Not at 
all. Like these forces, it is ruled by general and fixed laws. 
Nevertheless, we do not find in the application of these laws, 
and in the results to which they lead, the mathematical 
precision of the laws and phenomena of gravitation and 
etherodynamy. Their mode of action merely seems to oscil- 



Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 13 

late between limits which remain impassable. This kind of 
liberty, and the bounds imposed upon it, are conspicuous 
in the constant diversity of the products of life, a diversity 
which contrasts in so striking a manner with the uniformity 
of the products of etherodynamy. Crystals, when similar in 
composition, and when formed under similar circumstances, 
resemble each other perfectly ; but we never find two leaves 
exactly alike upon the same tree. 

The vegetable kingdom is, therefore, characterised by three 
kinds of phenomena : the Keplerian movement, physico- 
chemical phenomena, and vital phenomena, which may be 
ascribed to the action of three forces : Gravitation, Ethero- 
dynamy, and Life, 

VI. We find repeated among animals all the phenomena 
which we have noticed amongst plants, and, especially in 
the highest orders, those movements due to unconscious 
irritability, of which examples are presented by plants. 
Some eminent men, Lamarck among the number, have even 
wished to refer all acts performed by inferior animals to this 
order of phenomena. But here the author of La Philoso- 
phic Zoologique has fallen into an anatomical error, which has 
been long since recognised ; and whoever has lived, even for 
a short time, by the sea-side, or has followed closely the 
habits and actions of worms and zoophytes will certainly 
protest against this manner of regarding them. 

Passing from the plant to the animal, the latter executes 
movements belonging either to the part or to the whole 
which are perfectly independent of the laws of gravitation 
and etherodynamy. The regulating and determining cause 
of these movements is evidently within the animal itself. It 
is the Will. But the Will itself is intimately connected 
with sensibility and consciousness. To everyone who judges 
animals by what he finds takes place within himself, personal 
experiment and observation prove that the animal feels, 
judges, and wills, that is to say reasons, and consequently 
is intelligent. 

This proposition will, I know, be contested by men whose 



14 The Human Species. 

learning I profoundly respect, and objections will be made 
on all sides. On the one hand the Automatism of Descartes 
will be revived in some schools, and will now be supported 
by physiology and the experiments of vivisection. I am far 
from denying the great interest which is attached to the 
latter, and to the phenomena of reflex actions. But the 
conclusions which are drawn from them appear to me singu- 
larly exaggerated ; Carpenter has rightly opposed them with 
personal experiment. I will add that the study of animals 
placed far below, and certainly inferior to, the frog, would 
doubtless lead to very different interpretations. Moreover, 
Huxley himself admits that animals are probably sensible 
and conscious automata. But if they were merely machines 
we should be obliged to allow that they performed their 
functions as if they felt, judged, and willed. 

On the other hand, in the name of philosophy and psycho- 
logy, I shall be accused of confounding certain intellectual 
attributes of the human reason with the exclusively sensitive 
faculties of animals. I shall presently endeavour to answer 
this criticism from the standpoint which should never be 
quitted by the naturalist, that, namely, of experiment and 
observation. I shall here confine myself to saying that, in 
my opinion, the animal is intelligent, and, although a rudi- 
mentary being, its. intelligence is nevertheless of the same 
nature as that of man. It is, moreover, very unequally 
distributed among the animal species ; in this respect there 
are many intervening sta'ges between the oyster and the 
dog. 

In addition to the phenomena which spring from the intelli- 
gence and reasoning, we find in animals other impulses which 
arise from Instinct, a blind impulse, or at least apparently so, 
which often is the characteristic of animal species, and with 
which each individual is endowed. These two orders of facts 
are very often confounded, but the confusion can be explained 
as follows. In the first place, instinct has as its object the 
attainment of a determined and fixed result, but in the 
multitude of ways and means necessary to attain this result 



Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 1 5 

a portion which is often very large is due to the intelligence. 
The distinction is not always easy. It will, moreover, be 
apparent that I cannot here enter into the details required 
by the examination of this question, so entirely foreign to 
that which is before us. 

Besides the acts of intelligence and instinct, phenomena 
have been established among animals which are closely 
connected with what we call character, sentiment, or 
passion. The familiarity of the terms is in itself a proof 
that upon this point ordinary observation has outstripped 
scientific examination. 

All these phenomena are perfectly new and have no 
analogy with those which we have noticed in the preceding 
kingdoms. They evidently justify the formation of an 
equally important group. The animal kingdom is thus 
universally admitted, independently of every theory which 
attempts to explain its characters. 

Facts radically different cannot be attributed to the same 
cause. We must admit, then, that the characteristic pheno- 
mena of the animal depend upon something different to 
those met with in the vegetable or mineral kingdoms. They 
are, moreover, united by such intimate relations, that it 
would be impossible not to attribute them to a single cause. 
From motives already mentioned we will give a name to 
this Unknoivn Cause, and, making use of an expression 
already established, though open, I can see, to more than 
one criticism, w T e will call it the Animal Mind (fame 
animale). 

Does the animal mind liberate the beings it animates from 
the inferior forces ? By no means, for we find them repeated 
with all their characteristics. In order to raise the least of 
its organs, the animal must contend with weight ; it cannot 
perform the smallest movement without the intervention of 
physico-chemical phenomena ; it cannot breathe, and, there- 
fore, cannot live, without constantly consuming some of its 
constituents. In the animal, moreover, just as much as in 
the plant, the inanimate forces, etherodynamy especially, 
2 



1 6 The Human Species. 

appear in their double character of constancy and of ubiquity 
in the accomplishment of phenomena, and of subordination 
to life, which governs their action in the animal as in the 
plant. 

Moreover, a large part is reserved for purely vegetative 
life in animals of the highest order. The entire organism is 
formed without any intervention of the animal mind. Again, 
a certain number of organs always escape more or less from 
the influence of the latter, and seem to be subject to life 
alone. Now these organs are precisely those upon which 
nutrition, and consequently the constitution and duration of 
the whole, depend. Thus life, which reigned supreme in the 
vegetable kingdom, now in its turn, appears in a subordinate 
character. We might say that it was essentially entrusted 
with the organisation and maintenance of the instruments 
of the animal mind. 

As to the latter, even where its intervention is most 
questioned, it is only revealed to observation by voluntary 
"movements. Now personal experiment and the faculty of 
reasoning, are necessary to enable us to comprehend the 
nature, and appreciate the signification of these movements. 
It is only by regarding himself as normal, that man can 
judge of the animal, a subject to which I shall presently 
return. 

Phenomena of four kinds are then characteristic of the 
Animal Kingdom : phenomena of the Keplerian movement; 
physico-chemical phenomena ; vital phenomena ; and pheno- 
mena of voluntary movement; attributable to the action 
of four forces : gravitation, etherodynamy, life, and the 
animal mind. 

VII. Athough the preceding statements are so much 
abridged, I have thought it well to give the condensed 
results in the following table : 



•Empires and Kingdoms of Natitre. 



17 



EMPIEES. 



KINGDOMS. 



/'Sidereal . . 
nic K de Cand o n e) 

Mineral . . 
(Linnaeus) 



(Pallas). 



Organic 
(Pallas). 



' Vegetable . 
(Linnaeus) 



Animal . . 
^ (Linnaeus) 



PHENOMENA. 



Phenomena of the Kep 

lerian movement . 
Phenomena of the Kep 

lerian movement . 
Physico-chemical phe 

nomena .... 
Phenomena of the Kep 

lerian movement . 
Physico-chemical phe 

nomena .... 
Vital phenomena . . 
f Phenomena of the Kep 

lerian movement . 
Physico-chemical phe 

nomena .... 
Vital phenomena 
Phenomena of voluntary 

movement . . . . 



CAUSES. 



Gravitation. 

Gravitation. 

Etherodynamy. 

Gravitation. 

Etherodynamy, 
Life. 

Gravitation. 

Etherodynamy. 
Life. 

The Animal 
Mind. 



From this table, and the expansions which it sums up, rise 
the following conclusions. 

1. Each kingdom is characterised by a certain number of 
phenomena, whose existence is independent of all hypothesis 
and theory. 

2. The phenomena increase in number from the sidereal 
to the animal kingdom. 

3. In passing from one kingdom to another, and proceeding 
from the simple to the composite, a number of phenomena 
appear, which are entirely unknown in the inferior kingdoms. 

4. The superior kingdom presents, independently of its 
special phenomena, the characteristic phenomena of the 
inferior kingdoms. 

5. Each group of phenomena indicated in the table is 
connected with a small number of fundamental phenomena, 
which can, in some cases with certainty, in others with more 
or less probability, be referred to a single cause. 

6. All these causes are equally unknown to us as regards 
their nature and mode of action. We know them merely 
by phenomena. We can, therefore, make no conjecture as 



1 8 The Human Species. 

to the relations, more or less close, which may exist between 
them. 

7. We nevertheless give names to these causes for the 
sake of convenience, and of facilitating the discussion of the 
facts. 

VIII. We can now return to the problem which gave rise 
to these expansions, and ask the question : Whether Man 
should take his place in the animal kingdom ? a question 
which evidently leads to another: Is man distinguished from 
animals by important and characteristic phenomena, abso- 
lutely unknown in the latter ? For more than forty years I 
have answered this question in the affirmative, and my con- 
victions, tested by many controversies, are now stronger 
than ever. 

But it is neither in the material disposition, nor in the 
action of his physical organism, that we must look for these 
phenomena. From this point of view, man is neither more 
nor less than an animal. From an anatomical point of view, 
there is less difference between man and the superior order 
of apes, than between the latter and the inferior orders. 
The microscope reveals equally striking resemblances between 
the elements Of the human organism and those of the animal 
organism ; and chemical analysis leads to the same result. 
It was easy to foresee that the action of elements and organs 
would be exactly the same in man and beast, and such was 
found to be the case. 

Passions, sentiments, and characters, establish between 
animals and ourselves equally close relations. The animal 
loves and hates ; we recognise in it irritability and jealousy ; 
unwearying patience, and immutable confidence. In our 
domestic species, these differences are more apparent, or 
perhaps we only notice them more closely. Who has not 
known dogs which have been playful or snappish, affectionate 
or savage, cowardly or courageous, friendly with everybody, 
or exclusive in their affections. 

Again, man has true instincts, were it only that of socia- 
bility. Faculties, however, of this order, which are so fully 



The Human Kingdom, 19 

developed in certain animals, in man are evidently very 
much reduced in comparison with the intelligence. 

The relative development of the latter certainly estab- 
lishes an enormous difference between man and animal. It 
is not, however, the intensity of a phenomenon which 
gives value to it from our present point of view, but 
simply its nature. The question is whether human intelli- 
gence and animal intelligence can be considered as of the 
same order. 

As a rule philosophers, psychologists, and theologians, have 
replied in the negative, and naturalists in the affirmative. 
This opposition can be easily understood. The former make 
the human mind, considered as an indivisible whole, their 
principal study, and attribute to it all our faculties. Unable 
to deny the similarity, external at least, between certain 
animal and human acts, and yet being anxious to clearly 
distinguish man from the brute, they have given to the acts 
different interpretations as they have been performed by one 
or the other. Naturalists have regarded the phenomena 
more closely without thinking of anything else, and when 
they have seen the animal behave in the same manner as 
they themselves would have done under the given circum- 
stances, they have concluded that the motives of the action 
must be fundamentally the same. I must ask permission to 
remain a naturalist, and to recall some facts, and regard 
them from this point of view. 

The theologians themselves allow that the animal pos- 
sesses sensation, formation and association of images, im- 
agination, and passion (R. P. de Bonniot). They allow 
that the animal feels the relation of fitness or of unfitness 
between sensible objects and his own senses ; that it experi- 
ences sensible attractions and repulsions, and acts perfectly 
in consequence, and that in this sense the animal reasons 
and judges (FAbbe A. Lecomte). Therefore, they add, we 
cannot doubt but that the animal possesses a principle 
superior to that of mere matter, and we may even give it 
the name of mind (R. P. Bonniot). Bat in spite of all, 



20 The Hitman Species, 

theologians and philosophers maintain that the animal cannot 
be intelligent, because it has neither innate sense, conscious- 
ness nor reason. 

Let us leave for a moment the last term, with which the 
idea of phenomena which we shall presently discuss, is 
connected in the mind of our opponents. Is it true that 
animals are wanting in innate sense, and are not conscious of 
their actions ? Upon what facts of observation does this 
opinion rest ? We each one of us feel that we possess this 
sense, that we enjoy this faculty. By means of speech we 
can convey to another the results of our personal experience. 
But this source of information is wanting when we* come to 
deal with animals. Neither in them nor in ourselves are 
innate sense and consciousness revealed to the outer world 
by any special characteristic movement. It is, therefore, 
only by interpreting these movements, and by judging from 
ourselves, that we can form an idea of the motives from 
which the animal acts. 

Proceeding in this manner, it seems to me impossible to 
refuse to allow animals a certain amount of consciousness of 
their actions. Doubtless, they do not form such an exact 
estimate of them, as even an illiterate man can do. But we 
may be very certain that when a cat is trying to catch 
sparrows on level ground, and creeps along the hollows, 
availing herself of every tuft of grass however small, she 
knows what she is about, just as well as the hunter who 
glides in a crouching attitude from one bush to another. 
We may be equally sure that kittens and puppies when they 
fight, growl and bite without hurting each other, know very 
well that they are playing and not in earnest. 

I must here beg permission to relate the remembrance of 
my struggles with a mastiff of pure breed, and which had 
attained its full size, remaining, however, very young in 
character. We were very good friends, and often played 
together. As soon as ever I assumed an attitude of defence 
before him, he would leap upon me with every appearance 
of fury, seizing in his mouth the arm which I had used 



The Human Kingdom. 21 

as a shield. He might have marked my arm deeply at 
the first onset, but he never pressed it in a manner that 
could inflict the slightest pain. I often seized him by his 
lower jaw with my hand, but he never used his teeth so 
as to bite me. And yet the next moment the same teeth 
would indent a piece of wood, I tried to tear away from 
them. 

This animal evidently knew what it was doing when it 
feigned the passion precisely opposite to that which it really 
felt; when, even in the excitement of play, it retained 
sufficient mastery over its movements to avoid hurting me. 
In reality it played a part in a comedy, and we cannot act 
without being conscious of it. 

It is useless for me to insist upon many other facts which 
I could bring forward, and I refer my reader to the works of 
those naturalists who have studied the question, especially 
those of F. Cuvier. But the more I reflect upon it, the 
more is my conviction confirmed that man and animals 
think and reason in virtue of a faculty which is common to 
both, and which is only far more developed in the latter 
than in the former. 

What I have just said of the intelligence I do not hesitate 
to say also of language, the highest manifestation of the 
intelligence. It is true that man alone possesses speech, that 
is to say the articulate voice. But two classes of animals 
possess voice. With us it is, again, only a high degree of 
perfection, nothing radically new. In both cases the sounds, 
produced by the air which is thrown into vibration by the 
voluntary movements accorded to the larynx, convey im- 
pressions and personal thoughts which are understood by 
individuals of the same species. The mechanism of the 
production, the object and the result are fundamentally the 
same. 

It is true that the language of animals is most rudimentary 
and, in this respect, in harmony with the inferiority of their 
intelligence. We might say that it was almost entirely 
composed of interjections. Such as it is, however, this 



22 The Human Species. 

language is sufficient for the wants of the mammalia and 
birds who understand it perfectly, while man himself can 
learn it without very much trouble. The hunter can dis- 
tinguish the accents of anger, love, pleasure, sorrow, the call 
and the signal of alarm and makes use of these indications 
as an unfailing guide, and often imitates these accents and 
cries in such a manner as to deceive the animal. Of course 
I exclude from the language of brutes, the song, properly so 
called, of birds, that of the nightingale for example. It 
appears to me void of all meaning, as are the notes of a 
singer, and I do not believe in the interpretation of Dupont 
de Nemours. 

It is not, therefore, in the phenomena connected with the 
intelligence that we shall find the basis of a fundamental 
distinction between man and animals. 

But in man the existence has been proved of fundamental 
phenomena of which nothing either in living beings or 
inanimate bodies has hitherto been able to give us any con- 
ception. 1st. Man has the perception of moral good and 
evil independently of all physical welfare or suffering. 2nd. 
Man believes in superior beings who can exercise an in- 
fluence upon his destiny. 3rd. Man believes in the proton- 
gation of his existence after this life. 

The last two phenomena have always been so closely 
connected that it is natural to refer them to the same 
faculty, to that namely of Religion. The first depends on 
Morality. 

Psychologists attribute religion and morality to the reason, 
and make the latter an attribute of man. But with the 
reason they connect the highest phenomena of the intelli- 
gence. In my opinion, in so doing they confound and refer 
to a common origin, facts entirely different. Thus since 
they are unable to recognise either morality or religion in 
animals, which in reality do not possess these two faculties, 
they are forced to refuse them intelligence also, although the 
same animals, in my opinion, give decisive proof of their 
possession of this faculty every moment. 



The Human Kingdom. 23 

The generality of the phenomena which we are discussing 
is, I believe, indisputable, especially since the investigation 
to which it has been subjected by the Society of Anthro- 
pology in Paris, where the question of the human kingdom 
has been long and seriously discussed. I cannot here re- 
produce the discussion, even in an abridged form, but refer 
my readers either to the summary in my Rapport sur les 
progres de V anthropologic en France, or to the Bulletins 
of the Society. I shall, moreover, go into this subject in 
some detail in the chapters devoted to the moral and reli- 
gious characters of the human races. 

A host of manifestations of human activity are derived, as 
so many consequences, from the three facts which I have 
pointed out. Customs and institutions of every kind are 
connected with them ; they alone explain some of the great 
events which change the destiny of nations aud the face of 
the earth. 

For reasons which I have several times pointed out already, 
we must give a name to the Unknown Cause from which 
are derived the phenomena of morality and religion. We 
will call it the Human mind (Fame humaine). 

I must here repeat the formal declaration which I have 
often made already. When I employ this term, which is 
established by custom, it is with the understanding that I 
strictly confine myself within the limits imposed upon any- 
one who intends to be exclusively faithful to science, experi- 
ment and observation. I consider the human principle as 
the Unknown Cause of exclusively human phenomena. To 
go beyond that would be to encroach upon the domain of 
philosophy or theology. To them belongs the solution of 
the formidable problems raised by the existence of the 
' something ' which makes a man of an organism entirely 
animal, and I give everyone leave to choose from the pro- 
posed solutions the one which agrees most satisfactorily with 
the demands of his own feelings and reason. 

But whatever this solution may be, it will in no way affect 
the phenomena ; those which I have just described will 



24 The Human Species. 

neither be diminished nor modified. Now they exist in man 
alone, and it is impossible to deny their importance. Thus 
they distinguish man from the animal as much as the 
phenomena of intelligence distinguish the animal from the 
plant, and as the phenomena of life distinguish the plant 
from the mineral. They are, therefore, the attributes of a 
kingdom, which we will call the Human Kingdom. 

From this conclusion it will, seem that I am at variance 
with Linnaeus, whose idea I have, however, only developed 
and stated more precisely. In fact, the immortal author of 
the Sy sterna JS T aturce has placed his Homo sapiens amongst 
the mammalia in the class of primates, and has made him 
congenous with the gibbon. This is because Linnaeus had 
recourse to the System in order to establish his nomen- 
clature. To classify man as well as other beings, he has 
made an arbitrary choice of a certain number of character- 
istics, and only taken those into consideration which were 
furnished by the body. 

But the language of Linnaeus is very different, even in his 
remarks relating to the genus Homo, and still more so in 
the kind of introduction entitled Imperium Natural. He 
there almost places man in opposition with all beings, and 
particularly with animals, and in such terms as necessarily 
to suggest the idea of a human kingdom. 

The reason of this is that here Linnaeus no longer speaks 
of 'physical man, but of man as a vAole. Now, thanks to 
the labours of Adanson, Jussieu and Cuvier, naturalists 
now know that this is the right course to pursue in judging 
of the relations which exist between beings. The Natural 
Method no longer allows the choice of such or such a group of 
characteristics ; it demands, together with an appreciation of 
their relative value, a consideration of all. It is on this 
account that I have been led to admit the existence of this 
human kingdom, which has been already proposed under 
several appellations by some eminent men, but to which I 
believe myself to have given a more precise and rigorous 
determination. 



The Human Kingdom. 



2 5 



The table given above must then be completed in the fol- 



lowing manner : — 





PHENOMENA. 


CAUSES. 


Human 
Kingdom 


[ Phenomena of the Keplerian movement . . 


Gravitation 
Etherodynamy 
Life 

Animal mind 
Human mind 


) Phenomena of voluntary movement . . . 
( Phenomena of morality and religion . . . 



Thus in the human kingdom we find by the side of the 
phenomena which characterise it all those which we have met 
with in the inferior kingdoms. We are consequently forced 
to admit that all the forces and all the unknown causes to 
which we have attributed these effects are acting in man. 
From this point of view man deserves the name which has 
sometimes been given to him of microcosm. 

We have seen that in the vegetable kingdom the in- 
animate forces perform their functions under the control, so 
to speak, of Life, which afterwards, in the animal, showed 
incontestable signs of its subordination to the animal mind. 
Life now appears under similar conditions with regard to the 
human mind. In the most characteristic human actions, the 
intelligence almost always plays the most prominent part 
from the executive point of view ; but it is manifestly under 
the direction of the human mind. All legislation affects to 
rest upon the one foundation of morality and of justice, 
which is only a form of it ; the immediate cause of the 
Crusades, of the spread of the Arabs, and the conquests of 
Islam, was religious fervour. The true legislator and the 
great leader are indeed necessarily men of high intelligence, 
but is it not clear that in the cases mentioned the intelli- 
gence has been placed at the service of morality or of 
religion, and consequently of the Unknown Cause to which 
man owes these faculties ? 

But however preponderating the part claimed by this 



26 The Human Species. 

cause in acts exclusively human may be, it has nothing to do 
with those phenomena which have their origin in the intel- 
ligence alone. The learned mathematician who seeks by the 
aid of the most profound abstractions the solution of some 
great problem, is completely without the moral or religious 
sphere into which, on the contrary, the ignorant, simple- 
minded man enters when he struggles, suffers, or dies for 
justice or for his faith. 

IX. It was necessary to recall all the facts and theories 
which I have just summed up, in order to facilitate the com- 
prehension and the justification of the method which alone 
can guide us in anthropological studies. 

The object of anthropology is the study of man as a 
species. It abandons the material individual to phy- 
siology and medicine; the intellectual and "moral indi- 
vidual to philosophy and theology. It has, therefore, its 
own special field of study, and on that account alone its 
special questions, which often could not be solved by pro- 
cesses borrowed from cognate sciences. 

In fact, in some questions, and in some of the most funda- 
mental ones, the difficulty lies in the interpretation of pheno- 
mena connected with those which are characteristic of all 
living beings. For the very reason that they are to a certain 
extent obscure in man, we cannot seek for an explanation of 
them in man, since he becomes, so to speak, the unknown 
quantity of the problem. An endeavour to solve the problem 
by the study of man, who is the object of it, would be equi- 
valent to a mathematician representing the value of x in 
terms of x itself. 

How does the mathematician proceed ? He seeks in the 
data of the problem for a certain number of knoivn quan- 
tities equivalent to the unknown quantity, and by means 
of these quantities he determines the value of x. 

The anthropologist must act in the same manner. But 
where must he seek for the known quantities which will en- 
able him to state the equation \ 

The answer to this question will be found in what we have 



Anthropological Method, 2 J 

said above, and in the table of kingdoms. Man, although he 
has his special and exclusively human phenomena, is above 
all an organised and living being. From this point of 
view he is the seat of phenomena common to animals and 
plants ; he is subjected to the same laws. In his physical 
organisation he is nothing more than an animal, somewhat 
superior in certain respects to the most highly developed 
species, but inferior in others. From this point of view he 
presents organic and physiological phenomena identical with 
those of animals in general, and of mammalia in particular ; 
and the laws which govern these phenomena are the same 
in both cases. 

Now plants and animals have been studied for a much 
longer period than man, and from an exclusively scientific 
point of view, without any trace of the prejudice and party 
feeling which often interferes with the study of man. With- 
out having penetrated very deeply into all the secrets of vege- 
table and animal life, science has acquired a certain number 
of fixed and indisputable results which constitute a founda- 
tion of positive knowledge, and a safe starting point. It is 
there that the anthropologist must seek the known quan- 
tities of which he may stand in need. 

Whenever there is any doubt as to the nature or significa- 
tion of a phenomenon observed in man, the corresponding 
phenomena must be examined in animals, and even in plants ; 
they must be compared with what takes place in ourselves, 
and the results of this comparison accepted as they are exhi- 
bited. What is recognised as being true for other organised 
beings cannot but be true for man. 

This method is incontestably scientific. It is similar to 
that of modern physiologists, who, since they are unable to 
experiment upon man, experiment upon animals, and form 
their conclusions upon the former from the latter. But the 
physiologist devotes his attention to the individual only, 
and, therefore, examines little more than those groups which 
in their organisation approach most nearly to the being whose 
history he wishes to explain. The anthropologist on the con- 



28 The Human Species. 

trary studies the species. The questions with which he has 
to deal are much more general, so he is forced to direct his 
attention to plants as well as to animals. 

This method is accompanied by its criterion • it allows the 
control of the various answers which are often made to one 
question. The means of estimation are simple and easily 
applied. 

In anthropology, every solution to be sound, that is to 
say, true, should refer man in everything which is not exclu- 
sively human to the general recognised laws for other organ- 
ised and living beings. 

Every solution which makes or tends to make man an ex- 
ception, by representing him as free from those laws which 
govern other organised and living beings, is unsound and 
false. 

Again, when we reason and form our conclusions in this 
manner, we remain faithful to the mathematical method. 
To be received as true, a solution of a given problem must 
agree with admitted axioms, with truths previously proved. 
Every hypothesis which leads to results at variance with 
these axioms or these truths, is, on that account alone, de- 
clared false. In anthropology, the axiom or the truth which, 
serves as a criterion is the fundamental, physical, and physio- 
logical identity of man with other living beings, with animals, 
with mammalia. All hypotheses at variance with this truth 
should be rejected. 

Such are the absolute rules which have always acted as 
my guide in anthropological studies. I do not pretend to 
have invented them. I have scarcely done more than for- 
mulate what has been more or less explicitly admitted by 
Linnseus, BufTon, Lamarck, Blumenbach, Cuvier, the two 
GeofFroy St. Hilaire, J. Mliller, Humboldt, etc. But, on 
the one hand, my illustrious predecessors have seldom 
treated the subject with sufficient precision, and have 
too often omitted to give the reasons for their decisions. 
On the other hand these principles have been, and are 
daily forgotten by men who, in other respects, enjoy with 



Anthropological Method. 29 

justice the title of great authorities. As I shall be com- 
pelled to disagree with them, I thought it necessary to 
"show clearly the general ideas which serve as a foundation 
for my own scientific convictions. The reader will thus be 
able to appreciate and discern the causes of this difference 
of opinion. 



CHAPTER II. 

GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES; MONOGENISM 
AND POLYGENISM. 

I. As soon as we have determined the place which should 
be assigned to man in the great order of the universe, the 
first question which rises is, whether there is one human 
species, or several. 

It is well known that this question has caused a division 
amongst anthropologists. The Polygenists regard the differ- 
ences of height, features, and colour, which distinguish the 
inhabitants of different countries of the globe, as funda- 
mental; the Monogenists consider these differences merely 
as the result of accidental conditions, which have modified, 
in various degrees, a primitive type. The former hold that 
there are several human species perfectly independent of 
each other ; the latter that there is but one species of man 
which is divided into several races, all of which are derived 
from a common stock. 

However slight may be our familiarity with the language 
of zoology and botany or their applications, it is evident that 
the question before us is a purely scientific one, and entirely 
within the province of the natural sciences. Unfortunately 
the discussion has by no means been confined to this 
ground. 

A dogma supported by the authority of the Book which 
is held in almost equal respect by Christians, Jews and 
Mussulmans, has long referred the origin of all men without 
opposition to a single father and mother. Nevertheless, the 
first blow aimed at this ancient belief was founded upon 
the same book. In 1655 La Peyrere, a Protestant gentle- 



Monogcnism and Polygenism. 31 

man in Condes army, interpreting to the letter the two 
narratives of the creation contained in the Bible as well as 
various particulars in the history of Adam and of the 
Jewish nation, attempted to prove that the latter alone 
were descended from Adam and .Eve ; that they had been 
preceded by other men who had been created at the same 
time as the animals in all parts of the habitable globe ; that 
the descendants of these Preadamites were identical with 
the Gentiles, who were always so carefully distinguished 
from the Jews. Thus we see that polygenism generally 
regarded as the result of Free Thought was biblical and 
dogmatic in origin. 

La Peyrere attacked the Adamic dogma in the name of 
the respect due to the text of a sacred Book. The philo- 
sophers of the eighteenth century spoke in the name of 
Science and Reason. It is to them that the school of 
Polygenists in reality owe their origin. But it is easy to 
see that the greater number of them were only guided in 
their writings by a controversial spirit, their chief aim was 
the destruction of a dogma. Unfortunately, the same pre- 
possession appears in too many works published in our 
own day. On the other hand certain monogenists are 
guilty of seeking in religious doctrines arguments in favour 
of their theory, and anathematising their adversaries in the 
name of dogma. 

Social and political prejudices in addition to dogmatic 
and anti-dogmatic prejudices have helped to make still 
more obscure a question already very difficult in itself. In 
the United States in particular the advocates of slavery and 
its opponents have often fought upon this ground. Further 
still in 1844 Mr. Calhoun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, when 
replying to the representations made to him by France and 
England on the subject of slavery, did not hesitate to 
defend the institutions of his country by urging the radical 
differences, which, according to him, separated the Negro 
from the White man. 

Besides those polygenists who are influenced by pre- 



32 The Human Species. 

judices almost or entirely unscientific, there are sincere 
and disinterested men of science who believe in the multi- 
plicity of human origins. Foremost among the latter are 
medical men, who are accustomed to the study of the 
individual and who only possess a slight familiarity with 
the study of the species. Then again there are palaeon- 
tologists, who from the nature of their work are compelled 
only to take into account morphological resemblances and 
differences, without even turning their attention to facts of 
reproduction or of filiation. Finally, there are entomolo- 
gists, conch ologists, etc., who, exclusively interested in the 
distinction of innumerable species by purely external charac- 
ters, are entirely ignorant of physiological phenomena, and 
judge living beings as they would fossils. 

On the other hand, monogenism reckons among its 
partisans nearly all those naturalists who have turned their 
attention to the phenomena of life, and among them some 
of the most illustrious. In spite of the difference of their 
doctrines, Buffon and Linnaeus, Cuvier and Lamarck, Blain- 
ville and the two Geoffroys, Miiller the physiologist and 
Humboldt agree upon this point. Apart from any influence 
which the name of these great men might exercise, it is 
clear that I share their opinion. I have on different occa- 
sions explained the purely scientific reasons for my con- 
victions. I shall now endeavour to sum them up in as few 
words as possible. 

II. Let us first establish the importance of the question. 
It escapes many minds and I have heard a doubt expressed 
upon it by men who have enthusiastically followed anthro- 
pological studies. It is, however, easily proved. 

If the human groups have appeared with all their dis- 
tinctive characters in the isolated condition, and in the 
various localities where geography teaches us to seek 
them ; if we can trace them up to stocks originally distinct, 
thus constituting so many special species, then the study of 
them is one of the most simple, presenting no more diffi- 
culty than that of animal or vegetable species. There 



Monogenism and Polygenism. 33 

would be nothing singular in the diversity of the groups. 
It would be sufficient to examine and describe them one 
after the other, merely determining the degree of affinity 
between them. At most we should have to fix their limits 
and to discover the influence which groups geographically 
brought in contact had been able to exercise upon each 
other. 

If, on the contrary, these groups can be traced to one 
common primitive stock, if there is but one single species of 
man, the differences, sometimes so striking, which separate 
the groups, constitute a problem similar to that of our 
animal and vegetable r aces. F urther, man is found in all 
parts of the globe, a^r^^-pauy^fe^unt for this dispersion ; 
we must explain' bW tne sarncr sffecJ&s has been able to 
accommodate itself to such opposite conditions of existence 
as those to which the inhabitants of the pole and the 
equator are subject. And lastly, the simple affinity of 
naturalists is changed into consanguinity ; and the problems 
of filiation are added to those of variation, migration, and 
a cclimatisation. 

It is clear that, independently of every religious, philo- 
sophical, or social consideration, this science will differ 
entirely in character as we consider it from a polygenistic 
point of view, or according to theories of monogenism. 

III. If the former of these doctrines claims such a large 
number of adherents, the reason may for the most part be 
found in the causes mentioned above. But its seductive 
simplicity and the facility which it seems to lend to the 
interpretation of facts also stand for a great deal. Unfor- 
tunately these advantages are only apparent. Polygenism 
conceals or denies difficulties ; it does not suppress them. 
They are suddenly revealed, like submarine rocks, to anyone 
who tries, however little, to go to the root of the matter. 

The case is the same with this doctrine as with the Systems 
of classification formerly employed in botany and zoology 
which rested upon a small number of arbitrary data. They 
were undoubtedly very convenient, but possessed the serious 



34 The Human Species. 

fault of being conducive to most erroneous opinions from a 
destruction of true relations and an imposition of false 
connections. 

Monogenism acts in the same manner as the Natural 
Method. The zoologist and the botanist are by this method 
brought face to face with each problem which is put before 
them under every aspect. It often displays the insufficiency 
of actual knowledge, but it is the only means of destroying 
illusions, and of preventing a belief in false explanations. 

It is the same with Monogenism. It also brings the 
anthropologist face to face with reality, forces him to inves- 
tigate every question, shows him the whole extent of each, 
and often compels him to confess his inability to solve them. 
But by this very means it protects him against error, pro- 
voking him to fresh investigation, and from time to time 
rewards him with some great progress which remains an 
acquisition for ever. 

I shall return to these considerations, the truth of which 
will be better understood when the principal general ques- 
tions of anthropology have been reviewed. Henceforward I 
shall attempt to justify as briefly as possible the preceding 
criticisms and eulogies. 



CHAPTER III. 

SPECIES AND RACE IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES. 

I. The question of the unity or multiplicity of the human 
species may be stated in the following terms : are the 
differences which distinguish the human groups characteristic 
of species or of race ? 

It is evident that the question depends entirely upon the 
two words species and race. It is then absolutely necessary 
to determine as accurately as possible the sense of each, and 
yet there are anthropologists, such as Knox, for instance, who 
declare that auy discussion or investigation in connection 
with this subject is idle. There are others, like Dr. Nott, 
who would suppress the race and only establish various 
categories of species. In order to support their doctrines 
these authors ignore the work which has been carried on for 
nearly two centuries by the most illustrious naturalists, and 
the innumerable observations and experiments made by a 
vast number of eminent men upon plants and animals. 

In fact the theory of species and race has not been formed 
a 'priori, as it has been too often falsely asserted, but has 
been gradually acquired, and in a strictly scientific manner. 

II. The word Species is one which exists in all languages 
which possess abstract terms. It represents, therefore, a 
general common idea. The idea is, in the first place, that of 
a great outward resemblance ; but even in ordinary language 
that is not all. The idea of filiation is connected, even in 
the most uncultivated minds, with that of resemblance. No 
peasant would hesitate to regard the children of the same 
parents as belonging to the same species whatever real or 
apparent differences might distinguish them. 



36 The Human Species. 

Science has in reality done nothing more than define the 
idea of which the public had merely a vague consciousness, 
and it was not till very lately, and after a very curious 
oscillation, that she succeeded in doing so. In 1686, Jean 
Ray, in his Historia Plantarum, considered that those 
plants which had a common origin and could be reproduced 
by seed belonged to the same species, whatever their 
apparent differences might be. He only took filiation into 
account. Tournefort, on the contrary, who in 1700 was the 
first to make a clear statement of the question, termed the 
collection of plants a species which were distinguished by 
some particular character. He relied only on resemblance. 

Kay and Tournefort have had from time to time a few 
imitators, who, in their definition of species, have clung to 
one of the two ideas. But the immense majority of zoolo- 
gists have been aware of the impossibility of separating 
them. To convince ourselves of this fact it is only necessary 
to read the definitions which they have given. Each one of 
them, from Buffon and Cuvier to MM. Chevreul and C Vo^t 
has, so to speak, proposed his own. Now, however they may 
differ in other respects, they all agree in this. The terms of 
the definitions vary, each endeavours to represent in the best 
manner possible the complex idea of species ; some extend 
it still further, and connect w r ith it the ideas of cycle and 
variation : but in all the fundamental idea is the same. 

In a case of such difficulty as that of finding a good defini- 
tion for a combination of ideas, the latest comer always 
hopes to improve upon his predecessors. For this reason I 
have also given my formula : " Species is a collection of 
individuals more or less resembling each other, which may 
be regarded as having descended from a single primitive pair 
by an uninterrupted and natural succession of families." 

In this definition, as also in that of some of my colleagues, 
among others of M. Chevreul, the idea of resemblance is 
made of less importance and subordinate to that of filiation. 
The fact is that there never is an identity of characters 
between one individual and another. Putting aside the 



Species and Race in the Natural Sciences. 37 

variations resulting from age and sex, it is 'at once evident 
that all representatives of the same specific type differ in 
some points. Although these differences are very slight, 
they constitute individual traits, shades as Isidore Geoffroy 
said, which enable us to distinguish between two of the same 
species. 

But the differences are not confined within these limits. 
The specific types are variable, that is to say, every kind of 
physical character is modified in their derivatives and, under 
the influence of certain conditions, to such an extent as to 
make it often very difficult to recognise their unity of origin. 
This, again, is a fact upon which all naturalists agree. 
Blainville even, who, defined spocies as "the individual 
repeated and continued through time and space," distinctly 
recognised this variability ; for the individual is perpetually 
undergoing modification, and does not retain its similarity 
during the various stages of life. He admitted, moreover, 
the existence of distinct races. 

The variability of species has also been the subject of 
animated discussion among naturalists. The memorable 
contention which arose upon this subject between Cuvier 
and Geoffroy is not yet forgotten, a struggle considered by 
Goethe as more important than the gravest political events. 
In the present day a school to which many of the most 
illustrious names in England, Germany and elsewhere belong, 
has taken up, with certain modifications, the ideas of Lamarck 
and Geoffroy; it gives support to them from retaining the 
term variability of species. 

There is a grave confusion of words in this formula. 
Lamarck, Geoffroy, ^Darwin and his school, consider the 
species not only as variable but as transmutable. The 
specific types are not merely modified, they are replaced by 
new types. Variation is in their estimation only a phase 
of the very different phenomena of transmutation. 

I shall discuss these theories presently. I shall now con- 
fine myself to the remark that true variability, admitted 
even by the defenders of dogmatic invariability, by Blain- 



38 The Human Species. 

ville, for example, a variability which I fully accept, has 
nothing in common with the transmutability of Lamarck, 
Geoffroy and Darwin. Let us briefly determine the limits 
of this variability. 

III. When an individual trait is exaggerated and passes 
a limit always very loosely defined, it constitutes an excep- 
tional character which clearly distinguishes the individual 
aftected by it from all those most nearly resembling it. This 
individual constitutes a Variety. 

The same term must be applied to all those individuals, 
which, like certain plants reproduced by slips, grafts, or 
shoots, derive their origin from the first exceptional in- 
dividual, without having the power of transmitting their 
distinctive characters by means of normal generation. I 
borrow from M. Chevreul a curious example of these multiple 
varieties. In 1803 or 1805, M. Descemet discovered in his 
garden at Saint Denis, in the midst of a bed of acacias 
(Robinia pseudo-acacia) an individual without thorns which 
he describes under the epithet spectabilis. It is to the 
multiplication of this individual by the art of the gardener 
that all the thomless acacias, now distributed over every 
part of the globe, owe their origin. Now these individuals 
produce seeds, but if the seeds are sown they only yield 
thorny acacias, The acacia spectabilis has remained a 
Variety. 

The latter may then be defined as : — " An individual or 
a number of individuals belonging to the same sexual 
generation, which .is distinguished from the other repre- 
sentatives of the same species by one or several exceptional 
characters." 

It will readily be seen how great the number of varieties 
in one species may be. "There is, in fact, scarcely any either 
external or internal part of an animal or plant, which cannot 
be exaggerated, diminished or modified in a thousand ways, 
and each of these exaggerations, diminutions or modifications 
will characterise a fresh variety, with the one condition of its 
being sufficiently marked. 



Species and Race in the Natural Sciences. 39 

IV. When the characters peculiar to a variety become 
hereditary, that is to say, when they are transmitted from 
generations to the descendants of the first modified in- 
dividual, a race is formed. For example, if a thomless 
acacia ever reproduced by seed, trees resembling itself and 
enjoying the same power, then the Acacia spectabilis would 
cease to be a simple variety, and would have become a race. 

The race, then, will consist of: — "A number of individuals 
resembling each other, belonging to one species, having 
received and transmitting, by means of sexual generation, 
the characters of a primitive variety. 

Thus the Species is the point of departure; the variety 
appears amongst the individuals of which it is composed, 
and, wdien the characters of this variety become hereditary, a 
racz is formed. 

Such are the relations which, according to all naturalists, 
" from Cuvier to Lamarck himself," as Isidore Geoffroy said, 
exist between these three terms. We have here a funda- 
mental idea which we should never lose sight of in the study 
of the questions with which we are engaged. From neglect 
of it men of the highest distinction have failed to understand 
most significant facts. 

We see that the idea of resemblance, which is much 
curtailed in the species, reassumes in the race an importance 
equal to that of filiation. 

We see also that the number of races which spring directly 
from one species may be equal to the number of varieties of 
the same species, and consequently very considerable. But 
this number has a tendency to increase still further to an 
indefinite extent. In fact, each of these 'primary races is 
susceptible of fresh modifications, which may either extend 
no further than one individual, or become transmissible by 
means of generation. Thus secondary and tertiary varieties 
or races come into existence. Our plants and domestic 
animals furnish innumerable examples of these facts. 

V. By reason of races originating in this manner from one 
another, and from their multiplication, they may assume 



4-0 The Human Species. 

differential characters which become more and more decided. 
But however numerous they may be, and whatever differ- 
ences there may be between them, and however far they may 
seem to be removed from the primitive type, they neverthe- 
less, still form part of the species from which the primitive 
races derived their origin. 

On the other hand, every species comprises, independently 
of the individuals which have preserved their primitive 
characters, all those which compose the primary, secondary 
and tertiary, etc., races, derived from the fundamental type. 

In other words the species is the unit and the races are 
the fractions of this unit. Or again, the species is the 
trunk of the tree, of which the several series of races repre- 
sent the principal and lesser branches and the twigs. The 
general unity and relative independence of the trunk and 
the branches of the tree represent in an obvious manner the 
connections existing between the species and its races. 



CHAPTER IV. 

NATURE OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 
RACES ; APPLICATION TO MAN. 

I. The meaning of the question stated above is now intel- 
ligible. We have to discover whether the human groups, 
which we know to be distinguished by characters which are 
often very marked, are fractions of a single unit, branches of 
the same tree, or so many units of different value, so many 
trees of various nature. 

Historical documents are absolutely incapable of solving 
this problem. On the other hand, man being the subject 
of the problem, it is evident that the solution must be sought 
elsewhere. 

Where then must we turn in order to obtain a definite 
answer to this question which concerns us so closely ? 
Clearly to naturalists and to naturalists alone. The Species 
and the Race have, for more than two centuries, been the 
subject of their studies ; they have amassed observations, 
multiplied experiments. They have, in their studies, been 
guided by a scientific spirit alone, and from being placed 
beyond the reach of controversy, have preserved all their 
freedom of judgment. The results thus acquired, deserve 
the greatest confidence, and supply reliable data for the 
application of our anthropological method. 

Anyone really desirous of forming an opinion upon the 
unity or multiplicity of the human species, should therefore 
discover what are the facts and phenomena which charac- 
terise race and species in plants and animals ; then turn to 
man and compare the facts and phenomena there presented 
with those which botanists and zoologists have observed in 



42 The Htiman Species. 

the other kingdoms. If the facts and phenomena which 
distinguish the human groups are those which, in other 
organised and living beings differentiate species, he will 
then legitimately infer the multiplicity of human species ; if, 
however, these phenomena and facts are characteristic of 
race in the two inferior kingdoms, he must conclude in 
favour of specific unity. 

It is the pursuance of this course which has convinced me 
of monogenism, and I am certain the result will be the same 
with anyone who will follow it. 

II. The idea of species rests, as we have seen, upon the 
two distinct ideas of resemblance and filiation. Let us first 
turn our attention to the former as being the greater 
stumbling-block of the two. No one would hesitate to 
consider two individuals resembling each other very closely' 
as belonging to the same species ; if, however, they present 
somewhat marked differences, and the necessary information 
is wanting, we hesitate to give our decision in the negative. 
The mind readily accepts the latter conclusion when man is 
the object of discussion. A continual, though unconscious 
study, has endowed us with a perception which appreciates, 
in those around us, the most delicate gradations in features, 
the colour of the skin, and in the appearance of the hair. 
Now this delicacy of appreciation has, in the present instance, 
a serious inconvenience. It inevitably conduces to the exag- 
geration of differences existing between different groups, and 
by this very means leads us to regard them as so many 
species. 

For this decision to have a real value, however, it should 
be shown beforehand that the variations between one human 
group and another, are greater than those which have been 
established between groups of animals and plants, which are 
positively known to be only races of one species. 

Now this is not the case. However slight an attempt we 
may have made to become acquainted with the nature and 
the extent of variations, we shall very soon see that in animal 
and vegetable races they attain limits, which are never over- 



Nature of Variations i}i Races. 43 

stepped, and but rarely attained, by the differences between 
human groups. 

III. I shall not insist at any length upon the morpho- 
logical and anatomical changes of plants. It will be sufficient 
to call to mind how numerous and different are those varieties 
of vegetables, flowers, fruit-trees, and ornamental shrubs, the 
number of which is always on the increase. Amongst the 
latter, the variety, it is true, very rarely attains to the condi- 
tion of a race. Grafting, propagation by layers, etc., make 
it possible to multiply them rapidly and with certainty, as 
in the case of the thornless acacia, and gardeners have always 
been in the habit of resorting to this method. Nevertheless, 
even among fruit trees, a few of these varieties have become 
fixed, and can be reproduced by seed. The plum, the peach, 
and the vine, may be quoted as examples. As to annuals, 
garden vegetables especially, they can only be preserved and 
multiplied by this method. Here we only find races, and it 
is well to know how numerous and varied they are. The 
cabbage alone (Brassica oleracea) numbers forty-seven prin- 
cipal races, each of which is sub-divided into a number of 
secondary and tertiary races. Now it is quite useless to insist 
upon the distance which separates the headed cabbage, of 
which sauerkraut is made, from the turnip-cabbage, of which 
the root is eaten, and from the cauliflower or the brocoli. 

It is very evident that this cannot be due to the mere 
alteration of primitive forms. The elements of the organism 
undergo modification, and are differently associated and 
combined according to the race. But these elements them- 
selves often undergo most fundamental disturbance. Certain 
acids are diminished or disappear, and are replaced by sugar, 
a sweet taste and perfume, which develop and characterise 
certain races of vegetables and fruits, and show that the 
vital forces of these plants have been subjected to very 
substantial modifications faithfully transmitted from genera- 
tion to generation. 

The objection will perhaps be made that there is too little 
resemblance between vegetable and animal organisms for the 



44 Th e Human Species. 

above comparison of anatomical facts to be really useful. It 
is different in physiological phenomena. 

Vital activity in our cultivated plants sometimes presents 
very remarkable differences in different races. In our several 
races of corn, the rapidity of development varies from simple 
to triple. In temperate climates barley requires five months 
to germinate, grow and ripen. In Finland and Lapland it 
only takes two months to accomplish the same phases of 
growth. And, finally, it is well known that in our kitchen 
and fruit gardens we find races and varieties, some of which 
are fast and some slow growers. 

The energy of the reproductive organs often varies in a 
singular manner in different races. We have, for instance, 
roses which bloom two or three times a year, and straw- 
berries which remain in fruit nearly the whole year. There 
are oranges crammed with pips, and others in which they 
are almost entirely wanting. Lastly, in some bananas and 
in the currant-grape the seeds have completely disappeared. 
We see at once that these latter products of human industry 
only exist as varieties. 

IV. In animals we meet with facts which correspond 
exactly with those which we have just observed in plants. 
Further, we find that they experience modifications con- 
nected with the manifestations of the something which we 
have called the Animal Mind. 

The diversity of races in our domestic species is too well 
known to make it necessary to insist upon this point. I 
shall only mention that Darwin reckons 150 distinct races 
of pigeons, and declares that he is not yet acquainted with 
all. These races are, moreover, sufficiently different to 
render a redivision into at least four distinct genera neces- 
sary, if they are considered as so many species. Among 
mammals analogous facts are noticed, in the case of the 
dog. At the Dog Show of 1863, the Society of Acclima- 
tisation, which had been very strict in its rules of admission 
and only received perfectly pure types, collected no fewer 
than seventy races of dogs. The greater number, however, 



Natter e of Variations in Races. 45 

belonged to Europe, and to France and England in par- 
ticular; almost all those of Asia, Africa, and America, were 
absent from the collection, so that altogether we are jus- 
tified in assuming that there are at least as many races of 
dogs as of pigeons. As to morphological differences we 
need only mention bull-dogs and greyhounds, beagles and 
Danish carriage dogs, mastiffs and King Charles's. It is 
scarcely necessary to remark that these external differences 
suggest the idea of corresponding modifications in the 
skeleton, in the proportion and form of the muscles. Ana- 
tomical differences are indeed even greater. For example, 
the skull of the water-spaniel is proportionately double the 
size of that of the bull-dog. 

There are among animals, as among plants, some races 
which develop slowly, and others which increase in size 
rapidly. As in plants, fecundity is diminished in some and 
increased in others. When they are too perfect, that is to 
say, when they are too far removed from their natural type, 
animal races, like vegetable races, only propagate with great 
difficulty, or even not at all. 

Our ordinary races of sheep only give birth once a year 
to a single lamb ; the " hong-ti " twice a year to two lambs 
each time. The wild sow only litters once a year with but 
six or eight young, but when domesticated litters twice a 
year with from ten to fifteen. Her fecundity is therefore at 
least tripled. In the Indian pig, derived from the " Aperea," 
it is more than seven times as great. 

In dogs, habits imposed by education, transmitted and 
strengthened by heredity, finally assume the appearance of 
so many natural instincts by which races are as nicely 
characterised as by physical peculiarities. This has been 
established beyond a doubt by the experiments carried on 
by Knight during more than thirty years. The mention of 
the beagle and the pointer will be sufficient to recall the 
contrast which in many cases exists between these acquired 
instincts. Considered as the relative development of the 
intelligence, properly so called, the difference between races 



46 The Human Species. 

is aiso very marked in many cases. From this point of view 
we need only compare the greyhound and the spaniel. 

V. If from animals and plants we pass to man, we shall 
find in him, as in the two inferior kingdoms, groups dis- 
tinguished by anatomical, physiological and psychological 
differences. In most cases the same organs and the same 
functions present analogous modifications. What reason 
can be alleged for the idea that, if their nature is considered, 
these differences and modifications have a greater significa- 
tion in man, and that they characterise species and not race? 
Clearly none ; it would be reasoning against the laws of 
analogy. An argument based upon the variations presented 
by the manifestations of morality and religion, would be 
a neglect of the fact that these faculties are the attributes 
of the human kingdom, that they are wanting in the other 
kingdoms, and are not in consequence susceptible of any com- 
parison of this kind. In that which is exclusively human, 
man can only be compared with man. 

In conclusion, the facts of the variations and differences 
existing in man between different groups, are of the same 
nature as those established between different races of animals 
and plants. The nature of these phenomena cannot then be 
brought forward as an argument in favour of the theory 
that these groups are so many species. 



CHAPTER V. 

EXTENT OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 
RACES ; APPLICATION TO MAN. 

I. The question to which this chapter is devoted is one of 
those which I shall treat most fully in this course. In fact, 
it has a speciaL importance. Nearly all the polygenistic 
arguments are included in. the following : — " The difference 
between the Negro and the White is too great for them to 
belong to the same species." These types are the two ex- 
tremes in the human series. Therefore, if it can be shown 
that between the two extremes, the limits of variation are 
almost always greater in plants and animals than in man, we 
shall have undermined the foundation of the whole poly- 
genistic doctrine. 

Now, even if we leave plants out of the question, and 
there can be little doubt in respect to them ; if we merely 
compare man and animals, organ for organ, function for 
function, we shall have no great difficulty in arriving at the 
conclusion, that this is really the case ; so much so that we 
shall be led to ask the question, why the variability is less 
in man than in animals. The complete demonstration of this 
general fact would require more extended treatment than I 
am able to give. I shall, therefore, confine myself to citing 
some examples. 

II. The colouring of the skin is one of the most striking 
characteristics, and one which is most apparent to the eye. 
This has given rise to the expressions White, Yellow, and 
Black, which are most improperly t used to designate the 
three fundamental groups of mankind. We will first prove 
that these names possess the grave inconvenience of giving 



48 The Human Species. 

rise to ideas which are entirely erroneous. Amongst the 
Whites there are entire populations, whose skin is as black 
as that of the darkest Negro. I shall only quote the 
Bishareen and other tribes inhabiting the African coasts of 
the Red Sea, the black Moors of Senegal, etc. On the other 
hand, there are yellow Negroes, as the Bosjesmans, who are 
the colour of light mahogany, or of cafe au lait, as Livingstone 
tells us. 

It is no less true that colour is by far the most variable 
characteristic in man, and when we place the coal black 
Negro side by side with the fair White with his pinkish 
complexion, the contrast is striking. But this contrast is 
repeated in several races of animals, in the dog, for example, 
whose skin is generally blackish, but white in the white 
poodle. It is the same among horses, a fact which was 
known even to Herodotus, who pronounces white horses with 
a black skin as superior to all others. 

The races of our domestic fowls alone present the three 
extreme colours observed in man. The French fowl has a 
white skin ; in the cochin-china it approaches to yellow ; it 
is black in black fowls. Sometimes they present a peculiarity 
similar to that which I mentioned in reference to the horse : 
a dark skin accompanying a white plumage as in the silk 
hen of Japan. 

These same black folds possess several interesting pecu- 
liarities from our present point of view. In Europe, melanism 
appears from time to time in our poultry-yards, and would 
infallibly spread if the fowls attacked by it were not de- 
stroyed. It is perhaps from want of this precaution that 
black fowls have been developed in various parts of the 
globe, among others in the Philippines, in Java, in the Cape 
Verd Islands, and upon the plateau of Bogota, all of which 
have been derived from European stocks. Melanism appears 
moreover, in groups of fowls which differ most strikingly in 
other respects, in the silk hen as well as in our ordinary races. 

We see that black fowls are in no sense a distinct species, 
and that the appearance of the black colour is merely an 



Extent of Variations in Races. 49 

accidental character, which may be produced in races very 
dissimilar in other respects, and afterwards propagated by 
heredity. Why then admit that it has been otherwise in man? 

Again, melanism is more highly developed in fowls than 
in man. It has long been held as a recognised fact that the 
skull of the Negro is more darkly coloured than that of the 
White. The fact is true. But M. Gubler has proved that 
the skull of a very dark complexioned White was coloured 
exactly in the same manner as that of the Negro, and that 
this peculiarity w r as sometimes individual, and sometimes 
hereditary in certain families. In fowls also, melanism 
penetrates to the interior ; but it is not only the meninges 
which present peculiarities similar to those presented by the 
blade man. With them all the mucous, fibrous, and aponeu- 
rotic membranes, even to the muscular sheaths, possess the 
same*colouring. The flesh also assumes a repugnant appear- 
ance, and it is for this reason that the propagation of black 
fowls is prevented as much as possible. 

The difference in colouring is easily explained. We now 
know beyond a doubt that the skin of the Negro is exactly 
the same in composition as that of the White. We find the 
same layers in both ; the dermis, the mucous layer and the 
epidermis present exactly the same structure. The layers 
are merely thicker in the Negro. In these two great races, 
the mucous laver, situated between the other two, is the 
scat of colour. It is formed of cells which are of a pale 
yellow colour in the fair White, of a more or less brownish 
3 r ellow in the dark White, and of a blackish brown in the 
Negro. External causes have, moreover, an influence upon 
the organ and modify the coloured secretion. Simon has 
shown that freckles are nothing more than spots upon the 
skin of the White presenting the characteristics of the skin 
of the Negro, and we know that an unusual exposure to 
the sun in. the men and women of our race, and pregnancy 
in the latter, is sufficient to determine the formation of these 
spots. 

Why, then, should it be thought strange that a number of 



50 The Human Species. 

circumstances, a constant heat, a bright light, &c, should in- 
fluence the whole body and perpetuate those modifications 
which in us are only circumscribed and transitory. In 
treating of the formation of the human races we shall have 
to bring forward facts which will clearly prove that this is 
not merely hypothesis. 

Finally, the colour of the skin depends upon a simple 
secretion which is subject to modification under a number of 
circumstances, as is the case with many others. There is, 
therefore nothing strange in the fact that some human 
groups, differing widely in other respects, should resemble 
each other in the matter of colour. This is the reason why 
the Hindoo {Aryan), the Bisharee and the Moor (Semitic), 
although belonging to the White race, assume the same, and 
even a darker hue than the true Negro. It also explains 
the fact that the colour of the Negro approximates in certain 
cases, to that of peoples belonging to the white stock who 
are more or less of a brown colour, or assumes a hue which 
exactly recalls that of the yellow races. 

Thus, in man, as in animals, the aphorism is verified 
which was formulated by Linnaeus in regard to plants : — 
nimium ne crede colori. 

III. I shall not dwell at any length upon the modifica- 
tions of the hair and villosities. They are much more 
apparent than real in man. Whether fair or black, fine and 
of a woolly appearance, as in the Negro,, or coarse and stiff, 
as in the yellow and red races ; whether the transverse 
section is circular as in the Yellow race, oval, as in the White, 
or elliptic, as in the Negro, the hair remains hair. The 
woolly fleece of our sheep, on the contrary, is in part of 
Africa, replaced by a short and smooth hair. In America 
the same is the case with the sheep of the Madeleine when- 
ever they are left unshorn ; and on the other hand, in the 
high plains of the Andes, the wild boars acquire a kind of 
coarse wool. 

The practice of certain natives of shaving off all hair has 
made some travellers believe in the existence of human 



Application to Man. 



51 



races which are entirely hairless ; the error has however 
been recognised. All men possess hair in the normal places. 
Hairless dogs and horses are, however, known to exist. In 
America, w T here the oxen have a European origin, the hair 
commences with becoming very fine and few in number 
with the pelones, and disappears entirely with the calongos ; 
and if the latter do not increase in number, it is due to 
their being systematically destroyed from an idea that they 
are a degenerate race. 

It is evident that in these several respects the variations 
are more extensive in animals than in man. 

IV. This fact becomes more evident when it is possible to 
substitute exact measurements for merely general ideas, and 
to compare figures. The variations in size present this 
advantage, and it is interesting to compare from this point 
of view the extremes of some animal races with the ex- 
tremes admitted in human groups. 



SPECIES. 


RACE. 




DIFFERNCE. 


RATIO. 


Dogs (length . . . 

?? » • 
Rabbits (length) 

m n • • 
Horse (height) . . 

•> >» • • 
Sheep (height) . . 


Small Spaniel . 
St. Bernard 
Nicard . . . 
Belier . . . 
Shetland . . 
Dray Horse . 


m. ft. in. 
0-305 1 
1-328 3 4-27 
0-20 7-87 
0-60 1 11-62 
0-76 2 592 
1-80 5 10-85 
0325 1 0-79 
1-040 3 4-94 
1-37 4 5-93 
1-72 5 8-11 


m. ft. in. 
j 1-025 2 4-27 

|040 1 3-74 

1 1-04 3 4-94 

I 0-715 2 4-15 

j 0-35 1 218 


0-2 
0-3 
0-4 
0-3 
0-8 


Man (mean height) . 


Rosjesman . . 
Patagonian 



We see that the variation between races is in the horse 
twice as great as in man, nearly three times in the sheep 
and rabbit, and four times as much in the dog. The differ- 
ence is perhaps even more striking in the goat and ox, 
judging from the terms of comparison used by several 
travellers. 

If, after having studied the various dimensions of the body, 
we compare the differences in proportion presented on the 



52 The Human Species, 

one hand by animals and on the other by human groups, we 
shall arrive at similar results. Without, however, entering 
into details it will be sufficient to mention the greyhound 
and the beagle. 

Y. One of the most singular external characters, and one 
which has often been insisted upon as being necessarily a 
character of species, is that presented by the Bosjesman 
women. It is generally known that at the low T er extremity 
of the loins they develop a fatty mass which sometimes 
increases to a considerable protuberance, as may be seen in 
the Hottentot Venus, the model of which is in the Paris 
Museum. This steatopygia reappears however in certain 
tribes situated much further north than the Houzouana 
races, while Livingstone states that certain women of the 
Boors, incontestably of Dutch origin, had begun to be 
affected by it. From this fact alone, this exaggerated 
development of the adipose tissue loses the value which 
many wished to attach to it. 

If, however, the steatopygia were to exist only among the 
Houzouanas we could not, on that account, regard it as a 
character of species, for it has been proved in animals where 
it is only a character of race. Pallas has proved this fact in 
certain sheep of Central Asia. In these animals the tail 
disappears and is reduced to a simple coccyx, to the right 
and left of which are situated two hemispherical fatty masses 
weighing from twenty to thirty pounds each. Here, again, 
the variation is proportionally greater than in the Bosjesman 
woman. 

We cannot regard these sheep as a different species, for 
when the Russians removed the same animals from the 
country in which they were born, the steatopygia disappeared 
in a few generations. It is, therefore, merely a character of 
race which, can only be preserved in the place where it 
was developed, as may be seen in a number of other cases. 

VI. It is evident that the preceding character is just as 
much internal as external; it is also evident that neither the 
size, nor the proportions of the trunk and limbs, can vary, 



Extent of Variations in Races. 53 

unless the skeleton and the accompanying muscles experience 
corresponding modifications. The anatomical characters 
change then with the race in animals, as well as external 
characters. There are, however, certain facts which relate 
more directly to anatomy. I will quote a few cases. 

A dog's fore-paw possesses normally five well-formed toes, 
while the hind-paws have only four with a rudimentary fifth. 
This latter disappears in some races, mostly of a diminutive 
size. In certain large races, on the contrary, it is developed, 
and becomes equal to the other four. There must be then a 
formation of bone corresponding to the tarsus and meta- 
tarsus. 

Something analogous to the appearance we have just 
remarked may be observed in the pig, complicated, however, 
by a fresh phenomenon. Here the normal foot bears two 
small rudimentary lateral toes, and two medial toes, each 
with its own hoof. Now in certain races, already known to 
the ancients, a third medial toe is developed, and the whole 
is enveloped in a single hoof. Instead of being cloven-footed, 
which is the normal type of the species, the race becomes 
soliclungidate. 

Nothing of this kind is ever seen in man. In every race 
the feet maintain their ordinary composition, in the Bosjesman 
as in the Patagonian. Some teratological exceptions with 
a tendency to heredity are nevertheless occasionally displayed, 
of which we shall speak in another chapter. 

VII. The vertebral column is, so to speak, the fundamental 
portion of the skeleton, and yet it does not vary the less on 
that account. I shall not insist upon the differences pre- 
sented by its caudal portion, merely remarking that there 
are races of dogs, sheep, and goats, in which the tail is so 
reduced as to be nothing more than a short coccyx. 

The central portions themselves are known to be liable to 
change. Philippi tells us that the oxen of Piacentino had 
thirteen ribs instead of twelve, and, consequently, an extra 
dorsal vertebra. In the pig Eyton has observed the dorsal 
vertebrae vary from thirteen to fifteen, the lumbar from four 



54 The Human Species. 

to six, the sacral from four to five, and the caudal from 
thirteen to twenty-three, so that the total is forty-four in the 
African pig and fifty-four in the English pig. 

In man, the presence of one extra vertebra has occasionally 
been observed. These have always been isolated cases, 
except in one Dutch family, quoted by Vrolich. But it does 
not approximate to a constant character in any human group, 
and if such a group did exist, it is evident that the variation 
would here again be less than in animals, for without even 
reckoning the tail, it is three times stronger in the latter. 

Of course, I do not take into consideration what has been 
so often said of men asserted to have tails. We now know 
better how much credit to attach to this statement. But 
the variations which take place in the caudal region among 
animals teaches us that even a considerable elongation of 
the coccyx in a human group, and the multiplication of the 
vertebree which compose it, must not be considered a priori 
as a specific character. 

VIII. It might have been expected that the head would 
have escaped modifications, on account of the importance of 
the organs which belong to it. But such is not the case, and 
here again the modifications are much greater in animals 
than in man. Blumenbach remarked long ago that there 
was more difference between the head of a domestic pig and 
the wild boar than between that of the White and the 
Negro. There are no domestic species to which the same 
remark cannot be applied. But I shall only remind the reader 
of the heads of the bull-dog, greyhound and spaniel. 
. The extent to which the modifications of the head can be 
carried is nowhere more plainly shown than in the niata cattle 
of Buenos Ayres and La Plata, This ox exhibits the modifi- 
cations of the specific characters similar to those which the 
bull-dog presents among dogs. All the forms are shortened 
and thickened, the head in particular seeming to have ex- 
perienced a general movement of concentration. The inferior 
maxillary bone, although itself shortened, so far exceeds. the 
superior in length that the animal is unable to browse the 



Application to Man, 55 

trees. The cranium is as much deformed as the face; nob 
only are the forms* of the bones modified, but also their 
relations, not one of which, according to Professor Owen, 
has been strictly preserved. This race, though perfectly 
established, is not therefore necessarily of less recent origin ; 
for, as I remarked above, all the American oxen are des- 
cended from European stocks. It is already represented in 
the New World by two sub-races, one of which, that of 
Buenos Ayres, has preserved the horns, while that of Mexico 
has lost them. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark that no human group 
presents anything at all analogous to this. 

IX. The several facts which I have here enumerated seem 
to me sufficient to justify the proposition which I asserted at 
the commencement of the chapter, namely: — that the limits of 
variation are almost always more extensive between certain 
races of animals than between the most distant human 
groups. 

Consequently, however great the differences existing be-* 
tween these human groups may be, or may appear to be, to 
consider them as specific characters is a perfectly arbitrary 
estimation of their value. It is, to say the least, quite as 
rational, quite as scientific, to consider these differences only 
as characters of race, and even on that accouut to refer all 
the human groups to a single species. 

The legitimacy of this conclusion is incontestable. Now, 
I repeat, that this conclusion is sufficient to destroy the very 
foundation of the polygenistic theory. In reality this theory 
rests entirely upon morphological considerations. Its parti- 
sans, struck only by the material differences presented by the 
human groups, have thought it impossible to account for 
them, except by the admission of the existence of several 
species. By showing that facts of this nature can be equally 
well interpreted under the hypothesis of the Unity of the 
Species, monogenism and polygenism are, so to speak, placed 
on an equal footing. 



CHAPTER VI. 

INTERCROSSING AND FUSION OF CHARACTERS IN ANIMAL 
RACES; APPLICATION TO MAN. 

Without even quitting the ground of morphology, it will be 
easy to prove which theory is most probably the correct one. 

We know that naturalists consider that all individuals 
which pass from one to another by invisible shades belong to 
the same species, however different the extremes may be. 
All great museums contain examples of this fact. 

The grounds for this conclusion are much stronger when 
there exists an intercrossing of characters. This inter- 
crossing exists when a very decided and apparently exclusive 
character reappears in one or several individuals differing 
widely in other respects, and undoubtedly belonging to 
distinct groups. It is a case of intercrossing again, when 
the same character varies in such a manner as to lead, if 
considered apart, to the division of a natural group, and to 
the separation of the fractions into very different groups. 

Now there is no animal species which presents these 
essentially morphological characters in a higher degree than 
man. When the human groups are studied in some detail, 
the difficulty does not consist in finding resemblances, but 
in clearly defining the differences. The more carefully they 
are considered, the more they disappear and become oblite- 
rated. We then understand the accounts given by most 
trustworthy travellers, such as d'Abbadie, of countries where 
the Negro and the White live side by side. In their 
extremes these two types are certainly very distinct. But 
in Abyssinia, for example, where they have long lived 
in contact, and intermingled, the Negro is no longer cha- 



Intercrossing and Fusion of Characters. 57 

racterised by either colour, features, or hair, but simply by 
the exaggerated protruberance of the heel. This character in 
its turn, however, loses its value on the Eastern coast of Africa, 
where whole Negro tribes have the heel formed like ours. 

o 

This is an example of intercrossing, and they could easily 
be multiplied. I have already observed how closely the 
Aryan or Dravidian Hindoos, African or Melanesian Negroes 
and manifestly Semitic populations may resemble each other 
in colour. The following is a still more striking example. 
Desmoulins regarded the perforation of the olecranon process 
as one of the most decided characters of his Austro- African 
species of man. Now this perforation reappears in Egyptian 
and Guanche mummies, in a large number of European 
skeletons of the neolithic period, the crania of which more- 
over, exhibit no other relations with those of theBosjesmans, 
and even in some Europeans of the present epoch. 

The intercrossing of ehai'acters between human groups 
becomes still more evident from the comparison of numerical 
data taken from a number of different groups. I shall con- 
fine myself for the moment to giving the results arrived at 
by the study of the stature when the representative 
numbers are placed in order. We shall presently meet 
with other examples. 

I here reproduce the table published in the Voyage of the 
JS T ovara, by Dr. Weisbach. I have added to the figures of 
the Austrian savant a few data relating especially to the 
smallest races. I have also given the maxima and minima 
where I have been able to procure them, so as to make the 
extent of the variation more appreciable than is possible from 
the average alone : 

STATURE OF DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES. 

Bosjesmans (min.) ) m - f |- "J- 

Esquimaux (min.) J 11W ° d '>' 

Obongo (young) 1-3G0 4 5'G4 

Bosjesmans (av.) ) 

Mincopees (min.) j L iU{J 4 ° J6 

Lapps (min.) 1-380 4 6*33 

Aetas (min.) 1-396 4 G'% 



53 



The Human Species. 



Semangs (min.) 
Mincopees (av.) . 
Bosjesmans (max.) 
Guanches 
Semangs (av.) 
Semangs (max.) . 
Mincopees (max.) 
Ae'tas (av.) . 
Fuegians (min.) 
Papuans 
Chinese (min.) 
Patagonians (min.) 
Lapps (av.) 
Aymaras (min.) . 
Sclaves (min.) 
French (min.) 
Javanese (min.) 
Negroes (?) 
Juags 

Aetas (max.) 
Aymaras (av.) 
Germans (min.) ) 
Tartars of Orotschi / 
Kamskadales ) 

Malays of Malacca 
Dyaks (min.) 
Australians (min.) 
New Caledonians (min.) 
Cochin Chinese (av.) 
Transgangians (av.) 
Vanikorians 
Timurians . . 
Amboynians 
Peruvians 
Battas ) 

Malays (av.) J 
Nicobarians 
Australians (av.) 
Quichnas 
English (min.) 
Pouleyers (av.) . 
Lapps (max.) . . 
Tahitians (av.) 
Australians (av.) 
Toulcous ) 
Guaranis ) ' 
Papuans of Vaigiou 
Mincopees (max.) i 
Fuegians (av.) / 
Californians V 

Madurese I 

Cingalese j 

Ando-Peruvians 
French of the South ) 
Chinese (av.) j 



m. 


ft. 


in. 


1-420 


4 


7-90 


1-436 


4 


8-53 


1445 


4 


8-89 


1-447 


4 


8-97 


1-448 


4 


9-00 


1-473 


4 


9-99 


1-480 


4 


10-17 


1-482 


4 


10-35 


1-488 


4 


10-58 


1-489 


4 


10-62 


1-520 


4 


11-84 


1-530 


5 


0-24 


1-532 


5 


0-31 


1-537 


5 


0-51 


1-540 


5 


0-62 


1-543 


5 


0-75 


1-549 


5 


0-98 


1*555 


5 


1-22 


1-5G1 


5 


1-45 




5 


1-53 



1-570 5 1-81 



. 1-574 5 1-97 



t . P575 



1-583 
1-586 



1-595 

1-597 
1-599 



. 1-610 

. 1-613 

. 1-614 

. 1-617 

. 1-620 

. 1-624 

. 1-625 



, . 1-627 
. 1-630 



5 2-00 



2-32 
2-46 



5 2-79 

5 2-87 
5 2-95 



1-600 5 2-99 



3-38 
3-50 
3-54 
3-66 

3-78 

3-94 



5 3-98 

5 4-05 
5 4-17 



Intercrossing and Fusion of Characters. 59 

m. ft. in. 

Nicobarians 1*631 5 4-21 

Belgians (min.) 1*632 5 4-25 

Austrian Sclaves (min.) 1-634 5 4-33 

Austrian Roumanians ) , „ „ _ . „_ 

Magyars \ l ' G3 ° 5 4 " 37 

Jews 1-637 5 4-45 

Dravidas (av.) 1-640 5 4-57 

Araucanians 1*641 5 4*61 

Bavarians 1-643 5 4-68 

Antisians 1*645 5 4*76 

Fuegians(max.) ) 

Crees > 1*650 5 4*96 

Dyaks (max.) \ 

Bagis 1*653 5 5*08 

Negroes (?) 1*655 5 5*16 

French, working classes (av.) . . . . 1*657 5 5-24 

Austrian Germans 1-658 5 5-27 

Esquimaux of Melville Is 1*659 5 5-31 

Roumanians (min.) ...... 1-660 5 5*35 

Faegians (max.) ) 

Chiquitos >■ 1-663 5 5*47 

Hottentots ) 

French of the North ) i • 

Algerian Arabs \ i ' b{j0 5 5 '° 6 

New Caledonians ) . ^_ ' 

Moxos \ l ' 6t0 5 °'° 

Pampeans (av.) 1*673 5 5*87 

Esquimaux of Savage Island \ 

Hawaians ( ,. r _ 

New Calif ornians ( ' * ...1676 5 5*98 

Malays of Soolo ) 

Austrian Sclaves (av.) ) 

Russians \ ' ' • • -1678 5 6*06 

Javanese ........ 1-679 5 6*10 

Germans j 

Negroes V 1-680 5 6*14 

Charruas ] 

French, upper classes (av.) 1-681 5 6-18 

Ojibbeways (min.) | 

Natives of Madras j l bbZ 5 6 22 

Fijians 1-684 

Negroes of Sokoto 1*685 

Belgians (av.) . 1-686 

English (av.) 1-687 

Pampas Indians 1 688 

Marquesas Islanders ) 

Esquimaux of Boothia sound j ' * * • l"oo9 

Somalis 1-690 

New Zealanders ....... 1-695 

Puelches ] 

Comma Negroes t . 1-700 5 6*93 

Tahitians (min.) ) 

Letts ) 

Rotuma Islanders [ . . ' , , , 1-701 5 6*96 

Courouglis (av.) ) 



5 


6*31 


5 


6*34 


5 


6-38 


5 


6-42 


5 


6*46 


5 


6*50 


5 


6-54 


5 


6*73 



6o 



The Human Species. 



Austrian Roumanians . . 

Kabyles (av.) . . . 

Caroline Islanders . . . 

Marianne Islanders 

English (max.) 

Esquimaux of Kotzebue Strait 

Australians (max.) 

Pottowatomis ) 

Caraibes > . . • 

Rarakai'ans ) 

Tschuwacks 

Patagonians (av. of D'Orb.) 

Tschercassians 

Patagonians (av. of D'Urv.) 

Sepoys of Bengal . 

Chinese (max.) . . . 

Niquallis . • • 

Hawaians .... 

New Zealanders 

Patagonians (av. Must.) 

Germans (max.) 

Polynesians (av.) . 

Pitcairn Islanders 

Roumanians (max.) 

Ojibbeways (av.) ) 

Agaces of the Pampas \ 

New Caledonians (max.) 

Tahitians (av.) . \ 

Marquesas Islanders ) 

Stewart Islanders 

Kaffirs 

Dutch 

Belgians (max.) 

Sclaves 

Aymaras (max.) 

Marquesas Islanders (max. 

Tahitians (max.) 

New Zealanders . . 

Mhava .... 



m. 


ft. 


in. 


1-702 


5 


7-00 


1-703 


5 


7-04 


1-705 


5 


7-13 


1-708 


5 


7-24 



1-714 



1-727 



1-7S9 



Caraibes ....... 

Ojibbeways (max.) . . . • 

Schiffer Islanders 

New Zealanders (max.) 

Patagonians of the North (max. of D'Orb.) 

Patagonians of the South (max. Musters) 

Schiffer Islanders ) 

Tongatuban Islanders j 



1-930 



7-43 



5 7-S9 



1-728 


5 


8-03 


1-730 


5 


8-11 


1-731 


5 


8-15 


1-732 


5 


8-19 


1-733 


5 


8-23 


1-744 


5 


8-G6 


1-752 


5 


8-97 


1-755 


5 


9-09 


1-757 


5 


9-17 


1-770 


5 


9-G9 


1-77G 


5 


9-92 


1-777 


5 


9-9G 


1-780 


5 


10-08 


1-781 


5 


10-12 


1-785 


5 


10-28 


1-786 


5 


10-32 



5 10-44 



1-800 5 10-86 



1-803 


5 


10-98 


1-815 


5 


11-46 


1-841 


6 


0-48 


1-868 


6 


6-54 


1-875 


6 


1-82 


1-895 


6 


2-61 


1-904 


6 


2-96 


1-915 


6 


3-39 


1-924 


6 


3-75 



6 3-98 



We here see what strange relations and what a singular 
confusion rise from a consideration of the stature. Numbers 
given in the same order, representing the size of the skull, 
the cephalic indices, the weight of the brain, will give the 
same striking result. 



Application to Man. 61 

We must also observe that there is a great majority of 
means in this table. Now we see that the discrepancies 
between these means are less than the discrepancies between 
the maximum and minimum of a single race, so much so 
that races widely distinct from each other intervene between 
them. 

Now let us mentally compare instead of these groups, the 
individuals of which they are composed. Is it not clear 
that if they were placed according to height, we should pass 
from one to the other with scarcely the difference of a 
millimetre ; but is it not also clear that the confusion would 
become much greater than it appears even in the table ? 

I ask anyone who possesses even the smallest knowledge 
of zoology and zootechny whether it would be in a collection 
of species that he would expect to find the most evident 
affinities destroyed by the application of this method ? 
Would it not be rather in a collection of races that similar 
facts would be met with, as, for example, in canine races, 
where the mastiff and its young, the greyhound of Saintonge 
and the Italian greyhound, the large and the small carriage 
dog would be separated from each other by a number of other 
races if stature alone were taken into account. 

The intercrossing and fusion of characters, so marked 
between human groups, are inexplicable if we consider these 
groups as species, unless we admit that the morphological 
relations between these human species are of an entirely 
different nature to the relations established between animal 
species. But this hypothesis makes an exception of man ; 
we- have, therefore, the right to regard it as false. 

If, on the contrary, we look upon these groups as nothing 
more than races of a single species, all these facts of inter- 
crossing and fusion agree with what may be observed in 
plants and animals and replace man under the dominion of 
general laws. 

Thus, without quitting morphological considerations, 
which correspond to the idea of resemblance contained in 
the definition of species, we are justified in concluding in 



62 The Human Species, 

favour of monogenism. To confirm this conclusion, however, 
we must turn our attention to other facts which correspond 
to the idea of filiation, and consider the teachings of 
physiology concerning the phenomena of generation. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CROSSING OF RACES AND SPECIES IN THE ANIMAL AND 
VEGETABLE KINGDOMS. — MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS. 

I. Sexual unions in plants, as in animals, can take place 
between individuals of the same species and the same race ; 
further, between different races of the same species, and, 
finally, between different species. In the two latter cases 
we have what is called a cross. This crossing itself is dif- 
ferently named according to whether it takes plaee between 
different races or different species. In the first case it pro- 
duces a mongrel, in the second a hybrid. When the cross 
unions are fertile the product of the union of mongrels is 
called a mongrel, the product of the union of hybrids a 
hybrid. 

If the difference of the relations existing between the race 
and the species has been properly understood, we ought to 
be inclined to admit that mongrels and hybrids would not 
present the same phenomena ; experience and observation 
confirm this presentiment. 

We have, therefore, in this crossing a means of judging 
whether the human groups are only races of a single species, 
or rather distinct species. For this purpose it will be 
sufficient to study the phenomena which, in other organised 
and living beings, accompany the production of mongrels 
and hybrids, and then to compare with both the phenomena 
which characterise the crosses effected between human 
groups. If, in the latter case, the phenomena are those 
which characterise hybridism, we must conclude that the 
groups are specifically distinct, and admit the multiplicity 
of human species. If, however, crosses between human 
4 



64 The Human Species, 

groups, morphologically different, are accompanied by pheno- 
mena peculiar to the production of "mongrels, we shall only 
be justified in considering these groups as races of one 
species ; we must take our stand upon the doctrine of the 
Specific Unity of all mankind. 

The question before us becomes then entirely a physiological 
one, and depends simply upon observation and experiment. 
For its solution we must again turn our attention to plants 
as well as to animals. It is in the phenomena of reproduc- 
tion that the two kingdoms show the greatest resemblance. 
This is not a case of mere analogy, but almost of identity, 
and it is not the superior which lowers itself but the inferior 
which is raised. We might say that, ennobled by the im- 
portance of the function, the plant, as far as its reproductive 
system is concerned, becomes, for the time, animal. 

II. In these kingdoms the unions between races of the 
same species, that is to say, the production of mongrels, 
may be accomplished without any intervention on the part 
of man, or it may take place under his direction. It is 
consequently either natural or artificial. 

Mongrels among plants could only be recognised after the 
discovery of the distinction of the sexes in 1744. The honour 
of this great discovery belongs to Linna?us. He at once 
comprehended the importance of the subject, and even 
exaggerated it, as we shall presently see. Linnaeus admitted 
that cross-unions, which had been observed for centuries 
between animals, might be repeated between plants. And he 
thus explained the appearance of variegated tulips in the 
midst of borders originally formed of uniformly coloured 
flowers. Observation and experiment have confirmed the 
views of the founder of the natural sciences again and again. 
Moreover, it has been observed that the crossing may become 
apparent in all parts of the plant by a mixture of characters 
similar to that exhibited by the colouring of the tulips. 
M. Naudin, among others, who, during one year, watched the 
development of more than 1200 gourds, saw the seeds of a 
single fruit reproduce all the races contained in the garden 



Crossing of Races and Species. 65 

in which his observations were made. Superfetation had 
taken place. It is a fact of great importance, as it demon- 
strates the equality of action enjoyed by the pollen of all 
these races, which, morphologically, differ so widely from 
each other. No better example could be given of the faculty 
of crossing betiveen races. 

The natural and spontaneous production of mongrels 
among animals presents the same characters. Facilitated by 
locomotion it is accomplished every day in our houses, our 
poultry-yards, and our farms. The difficulty does not consist 
in the accomplishment of the cross but in its prevention, and 
in the preservation of the purity of the race. The careful 
observations made by Isidore Geoffroy at the Paris Museum, 
have shown that with sheep, dogs, pigs, and fowls, mongrels 
between the most different races were invariably fertile. 
Here again the phenomena of superfetation was often 
proved. Bitches produced, by males of several races 
successively, young which showed three or four distinct 
sources. Here the case was the same as with the gourds of 
M. Naudin. 

We see that man has found no difficulty in breeding 
mongrels, and that, when he has wished to do so for any 
purpose whatever, he has been able to regulate it by merely 
choosing the animal or plant. This kind of union has, 
indeed, been long in daily practice for the amelioration, 
modification, and diversification of the living beings upon 
which human industry is exercised. It is useless to insist 
upon facts which are known to all gardeners and breeders, 
and I shall confine myself to one remark, the importance 
of which will be understood later. 

We have already seen that in the endeavour to perfect a 
vegetable or animal race, the physiological equilibrium has 
sometimes been destroyed at the expense of the reproductive 
power. In such cases, crossing with another race which is 
less modified, generally revives the extinguished fertility. 
For example, the English pigs imported into the middle of 
France by M. de Ginestous became sterile after several 



66 The Human Species. 

generations. Upon crossing them with a leaner and less 
perfect local race, their fertility returned. 

All these facts, and their inevitable consequences, have 
been admitted by every naturalist who has studied the 
question. Even Darwin has recognised the truth of them in 
his valuable work upon the Variation of Animals and 
Plants. At that time he confined himself to the conclusion 
that the crosses between some races of plants are less fertile 
than between others, a proposition which no one would think 
of denying. He has gone further in the latest editions of 
his work upon the Origin of Species. Without bringing 
forward clear facts, the meaning of which would go further 
than the wise conclusions he had previously admitted, he 
invokes our relative ignorance of what takes place among 
w r ild varieties, and concludes that we must admit that the 
crosses between varieties must always be perfectly fertile. 
This is one of those appeals to the unknown, one of those 
arguments where even our ignorance is invoked as a proof, 
which we too often meet with in Darwin, who is often carried 
away by his convictions. I shall have to return to this point, 
but I here make the statement as an established fact, on the 
authority even of Darwin, that all known facts attest the 
'perfect fertility of mongrels. 

Finally, the formation of crosses betiveen races, or the 
production of mongrels, is spontaneous, and may be pro- 
moted by man without the least difficulty ; the results are 
as certain as those with the union of individuals of the same 
race ; in certain cases, indeed, fertility is increased or revived 
under the influence of this crossing. 

Crosses between species, or hybrids, will exhibit facts of an 
entirely contrary nature. 

III. The formation of hybrids, as of mongrels, may be 
either natural or artificial. 

The former is so rare that eminent naturalists have 
doubted its reality. There are, however, according to M. 
Decaisne, a score of well proved examples among plants. 
What is this number compared with the thousands of 



Mongrels and Hybrids. 67 

mongrels produced every day under our eyes. And yet 
the material conditions of fertility are identically the same 
with races as with species, and our botanical gardens, which 
group numbers of species side by side, facilitate crossing still 
more. 

Among wild animals living in liberty hybrids are still more 
rare. It is unknown, for example, among mammalia, accord- 
ing to Isidore Geoffroy, whose experience has here a double 
value. The order of birds alone presents some facts of this 
kind, nearly all of which are in the order of Gallinge. 
According to Valenciennes, they are unknown among fishes. 
In domestication and captivity spontaneous crossing between 
different species is a little less rare. 

The intelligent intervention of man has multiplied unions 
of this kind in a remarkable manner, especially among 
plants, but without being able to extend their limits. 
Linnaeus thought crossing was possible between species of 
different families. But in 1761 Koebreuter showed that 
he was mistaken. From these investigations, which were 
carried on for twenty-seven years, and from those of M. 
Naudin, his worthy rival, it appears that artificial crossing 
between species of different families never succeeds, and 
very rarely between species of different genera ; that it is 
always very difficult, and demands the most minute pre- 
cautions to insure success ; that it often fails between species 
of the same genus closely allied in appearance, and finally, 
that there are whole families among which hybrids are impos- 
sible. Amongst the latter figures the family of the cucur- 
bitacese, so thoroughly studied by M. Naudin, where the 
most perfect mongrels were produced spontaneously. We 
could not imagine, evidently, a more complete contrast. 

This contrast is carried into the minutest details. For 
example, any flower which has in the least possible degree 
undergone the action of pollen of its own species becomes 
absolutely insensible to the action of pollen of a different 
species. How different to the equality of action displayed 
by the several pollens of most distant races ! 



68 The Hitman Species. 

All experimenters agree further in declaring that even in 
the unions between species which have been most successful, 
the fertility is constantly diminished, and often in immense 
proportions. The head of the Papaver somnifera generally 
contains 2000 seeds or more. In a hybrid of this species 
Gcertner only found six which had been matured ; all the rest 
were more or less abortive. Here again, what a contrast 
between the crossing productive of such fertility in M. De 
Ginestous' English pigs. 

Hybridism in animals presents exactly the same phenomena 
as in plants. Man has been able, by diverting and deceiving 
animal instincts, to multiply crosses between species. But 
he has not been able to extend the very narrow limits at 
which these phenomena cease. Not one fertile union has 
taken place between different families ; they are very rare 
between genera, and even between species they are far from 
numerous, a fact the more remarkable as animal hybridation 
is an ancient institution. The mule was known to the 
Hebrews before the time of David, and to the Greeks in the 
age of Homer. Titires and musmons, products of crossings 
between the he-goat and the sheep and the ram with the 
she-goat, received their distinctive names from the Romans. 

The uncertainty of the result is another point of resem- 
blance between animal and vegetable hybrids. The same 
experiments executed with the same care and by equally 
clever experimenters have sometimes succeeded and some- 
times failed without any apparent cause. BufTon and Dau- 
benson often tried to reproduce titires and musmons. They 
succeeded twice, while Isidore Geoffroy has invariably failed. 
The formation of crosses between the hare and the rabbit, 
which has frequently been attempted in various parts of the 
globe, appears only to have been successful four or five times 
at the most. The pretended cross between the camel and 
the dromedary, admitted by BufTon and quoted by Nott, is 
certainly a fable, after the details which M. De Khanikoff 
kindly gave me, and which I have published elsewhere. We 
may, therefore, draw this conclusion from known facts, that 



Mongrels and Hybrids. 69 

there are only two species of mammals, the ass and the 
horse, the crossing of which is almost universally and invari- 
ably fertile. 

Finally, crossing betiveen species, or hybridation, is ex- 
tremely exceptional among plants and animals when left to 
themselves ; man can only produce them with great difficulty 
in the two kingdoms, and then only between a very limited 
number of species ; when he has succeeded, the fertility is 
almost constantly diminished, and often to a very consider- 
able extent. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CROSSING BETWEEN VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL RACES AND 
SPECIES; MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS; REALITY OF SPECIES. 

I. From the very first, in the union of two individuals 
belonging to different stocks, the race and the species dis- 
play very distinct and characteristic phenomena. We shall 
now see this opposition as strongly marked in the product of 
these unions in mongrels and hybrids. 

Several questions are raised by the mixed nature of these 
beings. I shall confine myself to those which refer to filia- 
tion, and which have therefore a special interest for us. They 
may be stated generally as follows : — are mongrel races, that 
is, those derived from two distinct races, and hybrid races, that 
is those which are derived from the crossing of tivo species, 
formed naturally, or can they be obtained artificially ? In 
other words, do mongrels and hybrids retain, during an 
indefinite number of generations, the faculty of reproducing 
and transmitting to their descendants the mixed character 
they inherited from the first parents which effected the 
cross ? 

II. In regard to mongrels there is not a shadow of doubt. 
Facts which frequently occur, often without our interven- 
tion, and sometimes in spite of our precautions, prove again 
and again that the mongrels of the first generation are as 
fertile as the parents, and transmit equal fertility to their 
offspring. Our gardeners and breeders always take advan- 
tage of this property of mongrels in order to vary, modify 
or ameliorate from their point of view the plants and 
animals in which they are interested ; the careful experi- 
ments of Buffon, of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, father and son, and 



Crossing between Races. Ji 

the testimony of Darwin, on this point very significant, 
prove beyond a doubt that unions between different races 
remain fertile, whatever morphological differences there may 
be between them. I shall confine myself to quoting one 
example from Darwin. The niata will unite indifferently 
in both senses with the ordinary ox, and the offspring is 
fertile. 

If several races of a single species are in habitual contact 
and left to themselves, they will intermix in every degree. 
This results in bastard offspring, devoid of definite charac- 
ters, but which, when methodically studied, would lead 
through insensible shades to the different primitive types. 
Jn this manner our street dogs and cats have come into 
existence, which remain perfectly fertile in spite of innu- 
merable crossings of every kind. 

With human intervention it is possible, when care is 
taken, to regulate the crossing between two races, and to 
obtain a mongrel race. After a few oscillations between 
the paternal and maternal types it becomes consolidated 
and settled. But whatever constancy it may have acquired 
as a whole, it almost always happens that some individuals 
reproduce, to a varying extent, the characters of one of the 
types originally crossed. 

This phenomenon is designated by the name of Atavism. 
It sometimes occurs in the midst of a race considered to 
be perfectly pure, and is the result of a single crossing 
several generations back. Darwin quotes the case of a 
breeder, who having crossed his fowls with the Malay race, 
washed afterwards to free them from the strange blood. 
After spending forty years in the attempt, he is still un- 
successful, the Malay blood always reappearing in some of 
his fowls. 

In animals as in plants, universal, free and indefinite 
fertility, whether between themselves or between all the 
races of the same species, is one of the characters of 
mongrels. Atavism attests the physiological bond which 
unites all mongrels. 



72 The Human Species. 

III. In hybrids we shall meet with some very different 
phenomena. 

Let us first, with M. Godron, establish the fact that in 
the vegetable hybrid the physiological equilibrium is de- 
stroyed in favour of the organs conducive to the life of the 
individual, and at the expense of those conducive to the 
life of the species. The stalk and leaves are always deve- 
loped in an exaggerated manner relatively to the flowers. 
The most common animal hybrid, the mule, is an entirely 
similar case, being invariably stronger, more robust, more 
hardy than its parents, but sterile. 

This sterility is not absolute, however, among all hybrids 
of the first generation. It generally affects the male organs 
in an entirely special manner. Koelreuter, to whom we 
should always refer when treating of plants, states that the 
anthers scarcely ever enclose veritable pollen, but merely 
irregular granulations. It was not quite so unusual to find 
ovules in good condition in the ovary. Guided by these 
observations, Koelreuter artificially fertilised hybrid flowers 
with pollen from the male species, and thus obtained a 
vegetable quadroon. By continuing this process he soon 
brought back again to the original male type the descen- 
dants of the first hybrid, which regained all their generative 
faculties, but at the same time lost all trace of the female 
type. These experiments have been repeated and varied, 
but always with the same result. 

In a small number of hybrids of the first generation 
the elements which characterise the two sexes remained 
capable of reproduction. Nevertheless the fertility is always 
immensely reduced. From his hybrids of the datura, M. 
Naudin only obtained five or six fertile seeds from each 
plant. All the others had completely failed, or were without 
an embryo. The capsules themselves were only half the 
normal size. 

If two of these first hybrids are united they produce 
hybrids of the second generation. In most cases, however, 
the latter are either sterile, or present the phenomenon of a 



Hybridation — Disordered Variation. 73 

spontaneous return to one or the other of the parent types, 
or to both. M. Naudin crossed the large-leaved primrose 
with the primula officinalis, and obtained an intermediate 
hybrid between the two species, having seven fertile seeds. 
When these were sown they produced three primroses of 
the male species, three of the female, and a single hybrid 
plant which was perfectly barren. 

In some still rarer cases fertility continues during several 
generations. Then, however, a curious phenomenon is ex- 
hibited, called by M. Naudin, who discovered it, Disordered 
variation. With the Linaria communis and the Linaria 
purpurea he produced a hybrid, the descendants of which 
he was able to follow through seven generations, in each 
of which several individuals reverted to the characters 
either of the original male or female. The others neither 
resembled the primitive types nor the hybrid resulting 
from their crossing, nor the plants of which they were the 
immediate offspring, nor was there any resemblance between 
the plants themselves. 

Thus the crossing does not produce a race, even in cases 
where it allows a certain amount of fertility ; it only produces 
varieties incapable of transmitting their individual characters. 
In order to establish a series of generations presenting a 
certain amount of uniformity, the hybrid must lose some of 
its mixed characters, and resume the normal livery of the 
species, as M. Naudin says ; in other words, it must return 
to one of the parent types. 

IV. The same facts which we have just noticed among 
plants, occur also among animals. We must observe in the 
first place, that the only two species, the crossing of which 
displays anything approaching to regular fertility, the horse 
and the ass, merely produce a hybrid almost entirely devoid 
of fertility. It is more than 2000 years since Herodotus 
regarded the fertility of mules as a prodigy, and almost 1800 
years since Pliny expressed the same opinion. 

And yet in some works we read that the fertility of the 
mule is displayed in the present day ; that it often propa- 



74 The Human Species. 

gates in hot countries, especially in Algeria. The true value 
of these singular assertions will be recognised if we recall the 
effect which was produced in 1 828 upon the whole Mussul- 
man population of Algeria by the announcement that a mule 
had conceived near Biskra. The astonishment was general ; 
the Arabs gave themselves up to long fasts to conciliate the 
wrath of heaven, thinking the end of the world had come. 
Fortunately the mule miscarried ; but long afterwards the 
Arabs still spoke with terror of this event. 

If this fact were occasionally repeated in Algeria it would 
never have produced such an impression upon a people so 
curious about everything connected with the horse. The 
impression itself proves that the facts are in our days similar 
to what they were in the time of Herodotus. 

Examples of fertility in the hybrids of the ass and the 
horse have never been observed except in the female, mule. 
There is not a single known example in the male. We 
meet with something analogous to this in birds, where the 
sterility of certain hybrids is less absolute. Thus vertebrata 
are similarly affected with plants; and in their case also the 
inequality between the two sexes can be explained by 
anatomical and microscopic examination. The male organs 
are generally but slightly developed, even the essential 
elements of the fertilising liquid undergo alteration. The 
female organs and elements, though modified, are relatively 
unaffected. 

There are some hybrids among animals, as among plants, 
which are not subject to the general law. Among birds in 
particular, a certain number, always however very limited, 
of more or less fertile hybrids have been obtained. But, 
with the males the faculty of reproduction is constantly 
weakened, and habitually disappears before the usual age ; 
the female lays more rarely, and the eggs are fewer in 
number, and very often clear. This is an exact repetition of 
what took place in M. Naudin's datura seeds, which he 
observed to become abortive or devoid of embryo. 

We must, moreover, exclude from the number of fertile 



Fertility of Hybrids. 75 

hybrids a certain number of examples quoted by some 
authors, and which statements are proved by facts, now 
either better known or better appreciated, to have an erro- 
neous foundation. Thus Hellenius thought he had crossed 
the Finnish ram with the Sardinian doe, but he had con- 
founded the then little known moufflon with the roebuck. 
He thus obtained a mongrel, which having been crossed for 
two generations with the male parent, returned to the type 
of the latter. We have here evidently only a companion 
experiment to those of Koelreuter, which resulted in a re- 
version of the hybrid to the male type under a similar series 
of crossings. 

There are, however, some examples among birds and 
among mammalia of hybrids which have propagated inter se 
for several generations, four or five at the most. The cele- 
brated experiment of Buffon upon the crossing of the dog 
with the wolf in particular, belongs to this order of facts. 
It was unfortunately interrupted by the death of the great 
naturalist at the fourth generation. It is clear that there is 
nothing here which does not perfectly agree with our ob- 
servations upon hybrid plants, which, although exceeding this 
number of generations, have never produced hybrid races. 

Fertility, and the number of succeeding generations is 
increased, when a superiority is given to one of the crossed 
species over the other. This fact has been recognised in 
plants, and we meet with it again in animals. By crossing 
and recrossing in a fixed manner the goat and the sheep, 
hybrids called chabins are obtained which possess three- 
eighths of the paternal and five-eighths of the maternal 
blood. These animals produce a fleece much valued in 
South America, and are the source of real industry. They 
can be maintained for several generations, but at length all 
the crossings to which they owe their existence must be 
recommenced, they having returned to the parental types, 
'like plants/ as M. Gay said. 

This proportion — three-eighths to five-eighths — appears 
to be very favourable to the maintenance of hybrid races ; 



J 6 The Human Species. 

it is the proportion which characterises the famous leporides, 
the result of the crossing of the hare and the rabbit. 
But can these hybrids, of which so much has been said, 
maintain themselves without reverting to the parental 
types ? M. Roux evidently believed it, and it is still asserted 
by M. Gayot. But the testimony of those who have esta- 
blished and impugned their assertions leaves scarcely any 
room for doubt. Isidore Geoffroy, who had at first believed 
in their fixity, and had spoken of it as a conquest, did not 
hesitate afterwards to admit the reversion. The fact has 
been established in the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and M. Roux 
himself, upon the assertion of M. Faivre, appears to have 
abandoned his previous assertions. The observations and 
experiments made by the Agricultural Society of Paris 
clearly show that the leporides, sent or presented by the 
breeders themselves, had entirely reverted to the rabbit t}rpe. 
Lastly, M. Sanson, discussing the anatomical side of the 
question, has arrived at the same conclusions. Moreover,, 
whoever will credit the observations made by M. Naudin 
upon the Linariae, will easily recognise the reversion and 
the disordered variation exhibited by the leporides of the 
Abbe Cagliari, who was the first to obtain a fertile crossing 
between the hare and the rabbit. 

These phenomena appear in an equally well marked 
manner in the result of the cross between the silkmoth 
(Bombyx cynthia) and the castor-oil silkmoth (Bombyx 
arr India), obtained by M. Guerin Meneville. The hybrids 
of the first generation were almost exactly intermediate 
between the two species, and resembled each other. In the 
second this uniformity disappeared, in the third the dissimi- 
larity had increased, some of the insects having reassumed 
all the characters of the paternal or maternal types. In the 
seventh generation this curious experiment was destroyed by 
ichneumons. But, as M. Valee, their intelligent breeder, told 
me, nearly all the moths had returned to the type of the 
Bombyx arrindia. The resemblance to what took place in 
the case of M. Naudin's Linariae is here complete. 



Hybridation — The Phenomenon of Reversion. 77 

V. The phenomenon of the reversion of the descendants 
of a hybrid to the paternal or maternal type, or disordered 
variation, has given rise to some interpretations which 
it will be well to rectify, • and has also raised important 
questions. 

The attempt has been made to assimilate the latter to the 
oscillations presented by mongrels for some generations. 
But daily experience should suffice to refute this opinion. 
Breeders are crossing races every day for some purpose or 
other, and they would never do so if the crossing were to 
result in the production of a disorder which would exhibit 
the smallest resemblance to that displayed by the Linariae of 
M. Naudin, and the silkmoths of Guerin Meneville. They 
expect, however, a few irregularities more or less marked, in 
the first generations, but they know that the race will soon 
settle while the disorder would only increase if the crossing 
had taken place between species. 

Again, an attempt has been made to consider the facts 
of atavism and reversion as identical. There is, however, a 
fundamental difference between them, for the mongrel which 
by atavism reassumes the characters of one of its paternal 
ancestors, for example, still preserves its mixed nature. 
This is proved by the possibility of its offspring of the first 
or second generation reproducing, on the contrary, the es- 
sential traits of its own maternal ancestors. Darwin gives 
many examples of facts of this nature from the agricultural 
history of his country. One of the best to quote is that 
furnished by the genealogy of a family of dogs observed by 
Girou de Buzareingues. These animals were crosses between 
the setter and spaniel. Now one male, a setter to all ap- 
pearances, united with a female of pure setter breed, pro- 
duced spaniels, which makes it evident that the latter blood 
was by no means annihilated, and that the return to the 
setter type was only apparent. 

It is different in the cases of reversion displayed by hybrids, 
for one of the two bloods is irrevocably expelled. We are 
justified in making this assertion in the case of mammalia, 



yS The Human Species* 

by experience extending as far back as the Roman period, 
or at least as far as the seventeenth century. Titires and 
musmons have never since those times had offspring affected 
by atavism. A ram and sheep have never been known to 
produce a kid, nor a male and female goat to produce a lamb. 
It is the same with plants, according to statements with 
which M. Naudin has kindly furnished me. 

Far from being similar, the phenomena of atavism and 
reversion are absolutely different and characteristic, the one 
of crossing between races, the other of crossing between 
species. The first proclaims the persistency of the physio- 
logical connections between all the representatives, more or 
less modified, of one species ; the second proves the complete 
rupture of the same connections between the descendants of 
two species accidentally brought into contact by the promoter 
of the hybridism. 

VI. In none of the preceding cases has hybridism, no 
matter in what degree, given rise to a series of individuals 
descended the one from the other, and preserving the same 
characters. An exception is, however, known to this general 
fact. It is unique, and is produced in the vegetable kingdom 
from the crossing of wheat with JEgilops ovata. 

The hybrid of the first generation from these two species 
is sometimes produced naturally, and was regarded by 
Requien as a species. Fabre, who frequently met with it in 
the fields, considered it to be the commencement of the 
transmutation of the iEgilops into wheat. Afterwards a 
quadroon hybrid, accidentally obtained and cultivated during 
several years, gave him descendants resembling the beardless 
wheat of the South. It was the result of reversion. Fabre, 
however, who did not recognise the hybrid, thought it was a 
transmutation, and flattered himself that he had discovered 
wild wheat in the iEgilops. 

M. Godron, on the contrary, understood the nature of the 
phenomenon, and demonstrated it experimentally. He 
crossed the iEgilops and the wheat, and obtained the first 
plant of Requien, the JEgilops tritico'ides of Fabre. He 



Characters of Hybrids. 79 

again crossed this hybrid with the true wheat, and repro- 
duced the pretended artificial wheat of the Montpellier 
botanist. He gave to it the name of JZgilops speltoeformis. 

It is this latter form, having as we see three-fourths of the 
true wheat, and a fourth of the iEgilops, that M. Godron has 
cultivated at Nancy since 1857. The clever naturalist who has 
produced it, believes that he has not had one case of reversion 
like those at Montpellier and those of Fabre. But at the same 
time he informs us that the most minute and special precau- 
tions alone can preserve this artificial plant. The ground 
must be prepared with the greatest care, and each seed 
placed by hand in the desired position. If put into the 
ground carelessly, or scattered over the bed, the seeds never 
germinate. M. Godron considered that the iEgiiops speltae- 
formis would entirely disappear, perhaps in a single year, if 
left to itself. 

VII. Finally, the characters of hybrids are : infertility, 
as a general rule, and, in the exceptions, a very limited 
fertility ; series suddenly cut short either by infertility, by 
disordered variation, or by reversion without atavism. 

The iEgilops triticoides alone seems to stand in opposition 
to all other known facts. This exception is undoubtedly 
remarkable, but does not in any way impair our general con- 
clusions. A product of human industry, this hybrid plant 
only exists by virtue of the same industry, and cannot, from 
any point of view, be compared to the succession of mongrel 
individuals which are unceasingly propagated without our 
aid, and in spite of our precautions, in the midst of our 
animal and vegetable races. 

" But," say those writers who deny the reality of a distinc- 
tion between species and race, " what man has done nature 
must be able to do also, for she governs space and time, and 
is therefore more powerful than man." This form of argu- 
ment rests upon a confusion of ideas and a strange neglect of 
the most ordinary facts. 

Most true, nature is more powerful than man in certain 
cases and for certain ends, but man also has his domain, in 



80 The Hitman Species. 

which he is much superior to nature. Natural forces act in 
virtue of blind and necessary laws, the result of which is 
constant. Now man has acquired the knowledge of these 
laws, he has made use of them to constrain and master the 
natural forces one after another, he now knows how to 
exaggerate some and to weaken others. In this manner he 
changes their resultants, and obtains products which nature 
herself could not realise. Give to the latter all the time and 
space that you will, she would never be able either to produce 
or preserve potassium or sodium in a metallic form ; in spite 
of the physico-chemical forces, or rather by directing them, 
man has obtained and preserved these two metals, as he 
has obtained and preserved the iEgilops tritico'ides, which is 
destroyed by the inflexibility of natural forces as soon as it 
is exposed to their action. 

VIII. The infertility, or, if you will, the restricted and 
rapidly limited fertility between species, and the impossi- 
bility of natural forces, when left to themselves, producing 
series of intermediary beings between two given specific 
types, is one of those general facts which we call a law. This 
fact has an importance in the organic world equal to that 
rightly attributed to attraction in the sidereal world. It is 
by virtue of the latter that the celestial bodies preserve their 
respective distances, and complete their orbits in the admir- 
able order revealed by astronomy. The law of the sterility 
of species produces the same result, and maintains between 
species and between different groups in animals and plants all 
those relations, which, in the palseontological ages, as well as in 
our own, form the marvellous whole of the Organic Empire. 

Imagine the suppression of the laws which govern attrac- 
tion in the heavens, and what chaos would immediately be 
the result. Suppress upon earth the law of crossing, and the 
confusion would be immense. It is scarcely possible to say 
where it would stop. After a few generations the groups 
which we call genera, families, orders, and classes would 
most certainly have disappeared, and the branches also 
would rapidly have become affected. It is clear that only a few 



Reality of Species. 81 

centuries would elapse before the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms fell into the most complete disorder. Now order 
has existed in both kingdoms since the epoch when organised 
beings first peopled the solitudes of our globe, and it could 
only have been established and preserved by virtue of the 
impossibility of a fusion of species with each other through 
indifferently and indefinitely fertile crossings. 

IX. There are some writers, very often entirely unac- 
quainted with the natural sciences, who, labouring under the 
most varied prejudices, especially that of exaggerating the 
transmutation doctrines which I shall presently discuss, have 
denied the reality of species ; they affirm that there are no 
serious barriers between the groups designated by this term, 
and have compared it in a more or less formal manner to the 
groups always somewhat arbitrarily called genera, tribes, 
families, orders, etc. Though only a brief recapitulation, 
the preceding facts would be sufficient to answer them. It 
is, however, necessary to mention the principal objections 
which are brought forward against such ideas, and to shew 
how they may be refuted. 

1st. It is useless to take any notice of the good humoured 
or malicious banter, of the raillery and sarcasm too often 
made use of by some writers against those who admit the 
reality of species. It is evident that those who employ such 
weapons do not address themselves to men of science, but 
appeal directly to the passions. We cannot sufficiently 
express our regret at seeing men of undoubted merit resort- 
ing to such means. 

2nd. At the present time, perhaps more than ever, those 
who believe in species are reproached with being orthodox : I 
could never myself understand why there should be this 
mixture of scientific discussions and dogmatic and antidog- 
matic polemics. 

3rd. I shall, moreover, refuse to dispute with those who, 
rejecting on their own authority a whole century of work 
accomplished by the greatest naturalists, and by a number 
of men distinguished in botany and zoology, declare that it 



82 The Human Species. 

is useless to try and discover what species and race are, and 
laugh at those who take the trouble to do so. I say the 
same to those who regard species and race as more or less 
arbitrary groups which may be compared to the genus, 
family and order. It will be enough to remark that they 
themselves incessantly employ the word species and race, and 
we must not be surprised if they take one thing for the 
other. 

4th. After what we have said, discussion is useless with 
those naturalists who only base the distinction of species 
upon external characters. They forget all the experiments 
made from Buffon to the two Geoffroys, from Kcelreuter to 
M. Naudin ; they forget the innumerable observations made 
in our orchards, gardens and stables. To refuse to abandon 
morphological considerations, and to neglect the data of 
physiology and the lessons of filiation, is clearly going 
further back than Ray and Tournefort, and all discussion 
becomes impossible. 

5th. Some of our opponents allow that things are now what 
we think them to be. " But," say they, " it is possible that at 
some other time it was different." What answer can be 
given to those who base their arguments upon possibilities ? 
Is modern science composed of possibilities ? 

6th. Naturalists have often been reproached with multiply- 
ing the definitions of species. From the variety of terms em- 
ployed by them in expressing ideas, it has been inferred that 
they were not agreed as to the ideas themselves. We may 
easily convince ourselves of their mistake, if we give these 
definitions a careful reconsideration. We shall see that their 
several authors have only endeavoured to express with 
greater clearness and precision, the double idea resulting 
from the facts of resemblance and filiation. In reality, 
divergencies only begin where experiment and observation 
cease. It is this which caused Isidore Geoffroy, however 
interested he might be in discussions of this nature, to 
remark — " Such are Species and Races, not only for one of 
the schools into which naturalists are divided, but for all." 



Reality of Species. 83 

7th. It has been asserted that the distinction of species and 
race rests upon a syllogistic circle ; that naturalists decided 
d priori upon calling all those groups incapable of inter- 
crossing, species, and all those amongst which crossing was 
possible, races. To appeal to the difference of the phe- 
nomena presented by the hybrids and mongrels is therefore 
only solving the question by the question. —This is an 
historical error. Naturalists came into contact with species, 
races and varieties, before they gave names to them. It 
was by experiment and observation that they learnt . to 
distinguish them. Knowledge of facts preceded termin- 
ology. 

8th. Again, it has been said, that the discussions which are 
always arising between naturalists as to whether a species 
should be preserved or regarded as a race, as to the genus, 
family, order, and sometimes the class in which it should be 
placed, betray a want of precision in general ideas. — Those 
who talk in this manner forget the immense number of 
species and races accepted and classified without discussion. 
They shut their eyes to all cases except those in which 
divergences of opinion occur. If, however, facts of this 
nature prove anything against a science and its fundamental 
data, then even mathematical theorems must be considered 
as wanting in precision, for there are disputes among 
mathematicians. 

9th. I have already replied to the arguments drawn from 
the fertility of certain hybrids by showing to what it is 
reduced. Writers who insist upon this point invariably 
forget the lesson taught us by disordered variation and 
reversion without atavism. I regret being obliged to place 
among them Darwin, who, in his later writings, has shewn 
much less reserve than in his earlier publications. In the 
last edition of his book, he quotes what I have said of the 
cross between the Bombyx cynthia and the Bombyx arrindia ; 
he speaks of the number of generations obtained, but he 
forgets to mention that disordered variation appeared in the 
second generation, and that reversion to one of the parental 



84 The Htiman Species. 

types was almost complete at the termination of the 
experiment. 

X. Species is then a reality. 

Let us take a group of individuals more or less similar, but 
always capable of contracting fertile unions, and let us, with 
M. Chevreul, trace it in imagination to its origin. We shall 
see it divided into families, each of which will have risen 
either mediately or immediately from one pair of parents. 
We shall see that the number of these families decrease at 
each generation, and rising still higher we shall at length 
find the initial term of a single primitive pair. 

Has this really been the case ? Has each species indeed 
arisen from one single pair, or have several pairs, resembling 
each other perfectly both morphologically and physiologically, 
appeared simultaneously or successively? These are questions 
of fact which science neither can nor ought to approach, for 
neither experiment nor observation is able to furnish us with 
the smallest data requisite for the solution. 

But what science may affirm is that from all appearances 
each species has had, as point of departure, a single primitive 
pair. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CROSSING BETWEEN HUMAN GROUPS. — UNITY OF THE 
HUMAN SPECIES. 

I. We now know what are species and race ; the pheno- 
mena exhibited by mongrels and hybrids furnish us with 
an experimental means of distinguishing them. We can, 
therefore, now reply to the question which has necessitated 
this discussion : Are there one or many human species ? 
Are the human groups races or species ? 

Unless we pretend that man alone of all organised beings 
is free from the laws which, in every other case, govern and 
regulate the laws of reproduction, and consequently, unless 
we make him a solitary exception precisely in that order of 
facts which most closely unites all other beings, we shall be 
forced to admit that he also obeys the laws of crossing. 

Thus, if the human groups represent a more or- less con- 
siderable number of species, we ought to prove in the cross- 
ings of their species the existence of the characteristic pheno- 
mena of hybridism. If these groups are only races of a single 
species, we ought, in crossings between them, to meet with 
the phenomena exhibited by mongrels. 

II. It is scarcely necessary to recall what nearly four cen- 
turies of experience and observation have taught us. It may 
be recapitulated in a very few words. 

Since Colombus commenced the era of great geographical 
discoveries, the White, the highest division of mankind, has 
penetrated to almost every part of the globe. He has every- 
where met human groups which differed considerably from 
himself in every kind of character ; he has everywhere 



86 The Human Species. 

mixed with them, and mixed races have everywhere sprung 
up in his track. 

Further still, thanks to an institution, detestable indeed, 
but the results of which have been favourable to anthro- 
pology, the experiment is complete. The White has en- 
slaved the Negro and taken him away with him to all 
parts of the globe, and where the local races have con- 
sented to intermix with the enslaved race, in every case 
they have produced mixed races of this inferior division. 
In America the Zambo is born side by side with the 
Mulatto and the Mamaluco. 

This crossing commenced less than four centuries ago, and 
some time has elapsed since M. d'Omalius estimated that 
mixed races constituted at least T V of the entire population 
of the globe, and he emphatically declared that he had only 
taken the half-breeds of extreme races into consideration. 

In South America, where Whites, Blacks and natives 
have long been in contact and have intermingled more 
freely, there are whole States in which half-breeds are in 
the majority, and in which it is extremely difficult to find 
a native of pure blood. 

Have subterfuges or precautions been necessary to form 
these unions and to insure the fertility of the offspring? 
Quite the* contrary. The tyranny of the Whites, the crimes 
of slavery, afford quite sufficient proof that in this case fer- 
tility was not dependent upon circumstances, but simply 
upon the physical connections existing between all men 
from the lowest of the Negroes to the first of the Whites. 

Has such facility, such certainty as this been experienced 
in the production of chabins and leporides ? 

If another proof were necessary of. the facility with which 
human groups intercross, it might be found in one of those 
testimonies the value of which is undisputed because they 
give the result of a daily experience. In 1861, the Cali- 
fornian legislature declared that any white person convicted 
of having cohabited with or married a Negro, Mulatto, 
Chinese or Indian, had forfeited all his rights, and became 



Unity of the Human Species. &j 

subject to all the constitutional incapacities imposed upon 
men of colour. The local press announced very plainly that 
the object of this measure was the prevention of the fusion 
and amalgamation of the races. 

The Californian legislature acted on this occasion like the 
proprietor of a flock of pure breed which he is anxious to 
keep free from all mixture. It was even more severe, 
ejecting from legal society, not only the offspring of the 
cross, but also the transgressing parents of the white race. 

Do not our breeders take similar precautions in the case 
of races only, and not in the case of species % 

Far from being sterile, unions between human groups 
apparently the most distinct are sometimes more fertile 
than those between individuals taken from the same 
group. " Hottentot women," says Le Yaillant, " with 
husbands of their own race have three or four children. 
With Negroes this number is tripled, and it is still further 
increased with Whites." M. Hombron, during four years 
which he spent in Brazil, Chili and Peru, studied this 
phenomenon in a, large number of families. "I am able 
to state," he says, " that unions of Whites with American 
women have given the highest average of births. Next 
come the Negro and Negress. And thirdly the Negro 
and the American woman." Unions between Americans 
themselves gave the lowest average. 

Thus, the maximum of fertility is here presented in a case 
which would constitute a hybridism in the opinion of poly- 
genists ; the minimum is exhibited between individuals of 
the same group, and it is with the woman belonging to the 
latter, that, owing to the cross, the maximum is obtained. 

These facts are significant. In no case of crossing ber 
tween species has fertility been observed to increase ; on 
the contrary it is almost always diminished, and often, as 
we have seen above, in an immense proportion. Crossings 
between races have alone presented facts analogous to those 
mentioned by Hombron and Le Vaillant. 

III. Thus, in every case crossings between human groups 
5 



88 The Hitman Species. 

exhibit the phenomena characteristic of mongrels and never 
those of hybrids. 

Therefore, these human groups, however different they 
may be, or appear to be, are only races of one and the same 
species and not distinct species. 

Therefore, there is but one human species, taking this 
term species in the acceptation employed when speaking of 
animals and plants. 

IV. Anyone who refuses to accept these conclusions must 
either deny all the facts of which it is the necessary conse- 
quence, or reject the method employed in the examination 
and appreciation of these facts. 

But these facts are borrowed entirely either from scientific 
experiments, made without any discussion or controversy by 
men of the highest authority, or drawn from the innumerable 
experiments which are daily practised by agriculturalists, 
horticulturalists, and breeders. It is therefore very difficult 
to deny them. 

As to the method, it is evident that it rests entirely upon 
the identity of the general laws governing all organised and 
living beings. Few true men of science will, I am sure, 
refuse to admit such a starting point as this. 

Now I wish that candid men, who are free from party- 
spirit or prejudices, would follow me in this view, and study 
for themselves all these facts, a few of which I have only 
touched upon, and I am perfectly convinced that they will, 
with the great men of whom I am only the disciple, — with 
Linnaeus, Buffon, Lamarck, Cuvier, Geoffroy, Humboldt and 
Muller, arrive at the conclusion that all men belong to the 
same species, and that there is but one species of man. 



BOOK II. 

ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER X. 



ORIGIN OF SPECIES. — HYPOTHESES OF TRANSMUTATION. — 

DARWINISM. 

I. The unity of the human race raises some general questions, 
and entails consequences which we must now examine. 

The first question which is suggested to the mind is evi- 
dently that of origin. Without abandoning the strictly 
scientific aspect of the subject, that is to say, confining 
ourselves to the results of experiment and observation, can 
we explain the appearance on our globe of a being which 
forms a kingdom by itself ? I do not hesitate to reply in 
the negative. 

Let us admit at starting that we cannot consider sepa- 
rately the question of the human origin. Whatever may be 
the cause or causes which preside over the birth or the 
development of the organic kingdom, it is to them that the 
origin of all organised and living bodies must be traced. 
The similarity between all the essential phenomena which 
they exhibit, the identity of the general laws which govern 
them, render it impossible to suppose that it can be other- 
wise. The problem then of the origin of mankind becomes 
identical with that of all animal and vegetable species. 

II. This problem has been approached very frequently and 
by many methods. But here we can only take into account 



The Human Species. 

,empts which have been made in the name of science, 
can these possess any interest for us until the time 

nen it was at least possible to make a clear statement 
of the question, which was impossible as long as no clear 
definition had been given of organic species. In an historic 
account of the attempts which have been made to solve the 
question, it is useless, therefore, to go further back than' Ray 
and Tournefort. The publication of Maillet in 1748 is the 
first attempt which deserves passing attention. 

I do not intend to repeat here the account which I have 
given elsewhere of the different theories proposed by that 
talented author, by Buffon, Lamarck, Et. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, 
Bory de St.-Yincent, and by Naudin, Gaudry, Wallace, Owen, 
Gubler, Kolliker, Haeckel, Filippi, Yogt, Huxley, and Mine. 
Royer. They all have this point in common ; they connect 
the origin of the more highly developed species with trans- 
mutations undergone by inferior species. But there the 
resemblance ceases, and their theories frequently differ 
entirely on all other points. In short, their ideas may be 
arranged in two principal groups according as their authors 
favour a rapid or a gradual transmutation. The former 
admit the sudden appearance of a new type produced by a 
being entirely different : according to them the first bird 
came from the egg of a reptile. The latter maintain that 
the modifications are always gradual, that between one 
species and another a number of links have intervened 
which unite the two extremes. They consider that types 
are only multiplied slowly, and by a progressive differen- 
tiation. 

In reality the first of these two theories has never been 
stated in such a manner as to form a real doctrine ; it has 
never formed a school. The philosophers who promoted it 
confined themselves most frequently to pointing out, in a 
general manner, the possibility of the phenomenon, while 
they attributed it to some accident. At most they invoke 
in aid of this possibility, some analogies borrowed from the 
history of ordinary individual development, from that of 



Hypotheses of Transmutation. 91 

alternate generation, or of hyper-metamorphosis ; they pro- 
duce no definite fact in justification of their assertions. 

With the exception perhaps of the hypothesis of M. Naudin, 
which we shall presently discuss, all these theories which 
favour a rapid transmutation deserve a still graver reproach, 
that, namely, of neglecting the great general facts exhibited 
by the organic kingdom. An explanation of the multiplica- 
tion and the succession of principal or secondary types by 
some hypothesis is not sufficient. Special account must be 
taken of the relations which connect these types, of the 
order which rules the whole and which has been maintained 
from remote geological periods through all the revolutions of 
the globe, and in spite of changes in fauna and flora. 

Accident, without rule or law, when invoked as the imme- 
diate cause of special transmutations, is obviously incapable of 
explaining this important fact ; it gives no explanation what- 
ever of the generality of fundamental types, and of the direct 
or lateral affinities which exist between their derivatives. 

It is different with the theories which favour gradual 
transmutation. They deal with all these important questions, 
and give a more or less plausible solution of them. They 
start from a certain number of principles whose consequences 
more or less explain the whole question and many of its 
details. In a word, they constitute genuine doctrines and it 
is but natural that they should have gained a certain number 
of adherents. 

Unfortunately these theories all have the same radical 
fault. They agree with a certain number of important facts, 
connected essentially with the morphology of beings ; but 
they are in direct contradiction with the fundamental phe- 
nomena of general plrysiology, whicli are no less general or 
fixed than the former. This contradiction is not evident at 
first sight. This is the reason why these doctrines have 
influenced not only the public at large, but even men of 
the highest intellect, whose sole error consists in their 
having allowed themselves to consider one side of the 
question only. 



92 The Htiman Species. 

All these theories have been consolidated into the doctrine 
which rightly bears the name of Darwin. At the hands of 
this illustrious naturalist, the hypothesis of gradual trans- 
mutation has assumed a force and appearance of truth 
which it never possessed before. Doubtless, long before 
Darwin, Lamarck had formulated his law of heredity and 
his law of development of organs, to which the English 
naturalist has added nothing ; M. Naudin had compared 
natural selection to artificial selection ; Etienne Geoffroy 
St.-Hilaire had promulgated the principle of the balance of 
organs ; Serres and Agassiz had recognized in embryogenic 
phenomena the representation of the genesis of beings. But 
by taking as a starting point the struggle for existence ; by 
explaining in this manner selection ; by fixing the results of 
heredity ; by replacing the pre-established laws of Lamarck 
by the laws of divergence, continuity, permanent characters 
and of finite heredity ; by giving by these means an explana- 
tion of the adaptation of beings to all the conditions of exist- 
ence, the expansive power of some, the localisation of others, 
the successive modifications of all, under the dominion of the 
laws of compensation, economy and of correlation of 
increase ; by applying these facts to the past, present and 
future of animate creation, Darwin has formed a complete 
and systematic theory, the whole, and often the details, of 
which it is impossible not to admire. 

I understand the fascination exercised by this profound and 
ingenious conception, which is supported by immense know- 
ledge, and ennobled by his loyal honesty. I should doubtless 
have yielded as so many others have done, if I had not long 
understood that all questions of this kind depend especially 
upon physiology. Now, my attention once aroused, I found 
no difficulty in recognising the point at which the eminent 
author quits the ground of reality and enters upon that of 
inadmissible hypothesis. 

I have thought it right to publish my criticisms upon the 
theory of transmutation, and upon Darwinism in particular. 
I was authorised to do so by the numerous attacks which 



Hypotheses of Transmutation. 93 

have often been made, in no measured terms, against what I 
consider to be the truth, and against every opponent of the 
new theory. But while refuting theories I have always 
respected the authors and done justice to their work. I have 
quoted the good as well as the bad, and have always held 
aloof from the ardent and lamentable polemics raised by 
transmutation. 

I have had great pleasure, when occasion has offered, in 
defending the splendid researches made by Darwin in the 
natural sciences. For this very reason, and at the risk of 
being considered narrow minded, enslaved to prejudices and 
unable to leave an old groove, etc., etc., I consider myself 
entitled to attack Darwinism, if I employ none but the 
weapons of science. 

III. There are some points in Darwinism which are per- 
fectly unassailable. We may consider as the most important 
the struggle for existence, and selection which is the result of 
it. It is not the first time, certainly, that the former has 
been established, and the important part it has to play in the 
general harmony of the world has at least been partly com- 
prehended. I will here only recall to the mind of my readers 
the fables of La Fontaine. But no one had insisted, as 
Darwin has done, upon the enormous disproportion which 
exists between the number of births and the number of 
living individuals ; no one had investigated, as he has, the 
general causes of death or of survival which produce the 
final result. By pointing out the fact that each species tends 
to increase in number in geometrical progression, which is 
proved by the number of offspring to which a single mother 
can give birth during the whole course of her life, the English 
naturalist makes it easy to comprehend the intensity of the 
struggles, direct or indirect, which are undergone by animals 
and plants against one another and the surrounding world. 
It is, most certainly, entirely owing to this struggle for 
existence, that the whole world, in a few years, is not overrun 
by some species, or the rivers and ocean filled in the same 
manner. 



94 The Human Species. • 

It is no less evident to me that the survivors cannot 
always owe their preservation to a combination of happy 
chances. Among the immense majority the victory can only 
be due to certain special advantages, which are not enjoyed 
by those who succumb. The result of this struggle for 
existence is, then, the destruction of all the inferior indi- 
viduals, and the preservation of those individuals only which 
possess some kind of superiority. This is what Darwin calls 
Natural Selection. 

I can scarcely understand how these two phenomena can 
be doubted or even denied. They do not constitute a theory, 
but are facts. Far from being repugnant to the mind, they 
seem inevitable, the consequences follow with a sort of neces- 
sity and fatality resembling the laws of the inorganic world. 

The term selection gives rise to criticism, and the language 
of Darwin, at times too figurative, renders plausible the 
objection of those who have reproached him with attributing 
to nature the part of an intelligent being. The word elimi- 
nation would have been more exact. But much of this 
should have been prevented by the explanations given by 
the author. Besides, it is evident that the struggle for 
existence entails the elimination of individuals who are 
less able to sustain it, and that the result exactly resembles 
that produced by unconscious human selection. Then 
heredity intervenes among beings which are free as well as 
among those which we bring up in captivity. It preserves 
and accumulates the progress made by each generation in 
any direction, and the final result is the production in the 
organism of certain appreciable anatomical and physiological 
modifications. 

The words superior and inferior should here only be 
taken as relative to the conditions of existence in which 
animals and vegetables are placed. In other words the indi- 
vidual which is best adapted to those conditions, will be 
superior and will conquer in the struggle for existence. For 
instance, the black rat and the mouse have both to struggle 
against the brown rat which entered France during the last 



Hypotheses of Transmutation. 95 

century from the banks of the Volga. The black rat was 
almost as large and as strong as his adversary, but less 
ferocious and less prolific. It has been exterminated in spite 
of refuges which are inaccessible to its enemy. The mouse, 
which is much weaker, but at the same time much smaller, 
can retire into holes which are too small for the brown rat ; 
it has therefore survived the black rat. 

Is it possible to admit that selection and heredity act 
equally upon that indefinable something which is connected 
with the rudimentary intelligence and instincts of animals ? 
With Darwin I unhesitatingly reply in the affirmative. 
With animals, as with man, all the individuals of the same 
species have not an equal amount of intelligence and do not 
invariably possess the same aptitudes ; certain instincts, like 
certain forms, are capable of modification. Our domestic 
animals furnish a number of examples of these facts. The 
wild ancestors of our dogs were certainly not accustomed to 
point at game. When left to themselves and placed under 
new conditions of existence, animals sometimes change their 
manner of life entirely. Beavers, from being disturbed by 
hunters, have dispersed ; they have now abandoned the con- 
struction of their lodges and dig out long burrows in the 
banks of rivers. The struggle for existence must have been 
favourable to the first discoverers of this new method of 
escaping from their persecutors, and natural selection, while 
preserving them and their descendants, has converted a 
sociable and constructive animal into a solitary and burrow- 
ing one. 

Up to this point it is evident that I agree in all that 
Darwin has said on the struggle for existence and natural 
selection. I disagree with him when he attributes to them 
the power of modifying organised beings indefinitely in a 
given direction, so that the direct descendants of one species 
form another species distinct from the first. 

IV. The fundamental cause of the disagreement arises 
evidently from the fact that Darwin had formed no clear 
conception of the sense which he attributed to the word 



96 The Hitman Species. 

species. I have been unable to find in any of his works a 
single precise statement on this point. The accusation is 
more severe from being brought with justice against an 
author who claims to have discovered the origin of species. 

More frequently Darwin seems to adhere to a purely 
morphological idea, which is also somewhat vague. He 
often opposes species and race, which he also calls variety, 
but without ever stating clearly what he understands by one 
or the other. He endeavours, moreover, to bring them to- 
gether as closely as possible, though occasionally recognising 
some of the points which separate them. " The species," he 
says in drawing one of his conclusions, " must be treated as 
an artificial combination which is necessary for convenience." 
His disciples have followed him faithfully in this direction, 
and those who use the most explicit language on this sub- 
ject, join their master in declaring that a species is only a 
kind of conventional group similar to those which are used 
in classification. As for races, they are only species under- 
going transmutation. Now from what he has already learnt, 
short though the study has been, the reader knows, I hope, 
to which view he should adhere, and understands to what 
confusions such a vague kind of theory must lead. 

In -'jjite c f the inevitable uselessness of a discussion of this 
^^-^kind, let us follow our adversaries into this unstable ground, 
and see whether morphological facts furnish their theory 
with the least probability. 

Darwin himself, on several occasions, states that the result 
of selection is essentially to adapt animals and plants to the 
conditions of existence in which they have to live. Upon 
this point I agree with him entirely. If, however, harmony 
is once established between organised beings and the condi- 
tions of life, the struggle for existence and selection could 
only result in consolidating it and consequently their action 
is preservative. 

If the conditions of life change they will again come into 
play in order to establish a new equilibrium, and modifica- 
tions more or less marked will be the result of their action. 



Hypotheses of Transmutation* 97 

But will these modifications be sufficiently great to give rise 
to a new species ? The following fact will serve as a reply. 

At the present time there is a stag in Corsica, which from 
its form has been compared to the badger-hound : its antlers 
differ from those of European stags. Those who confine 
themselves to morphological characters, will assuredly con- 
sider this as a distinct species, and it has often been 
considered to be so. Now BufYon preserved a fawn of this 
pretended species, and placed it in his park ; in four years it 
became both larger and finer than the French stags which 
were older and considered finer grown. Moreover, the 
formal evidence of Herodotus, Aristotle, Polybius and Pliny 
attest that in their time there were no stags either in Corsica 
or Africa. Is it not evident that the stag in question had 
been transported from the continent to the island ; that 
under the new conditions the species had undergone tempo- 
rary morphological modification, though it had lost none of 
its power of resuming its primitive characters, when placed 
in its primitive conditions of life ? 

Are we, then, to conclude that in time nature could have 
completed the action, and entirely separated the Corsican stag 
from its original stock ? We may answer in the negative, if 
any weight is to be attached to experience and observation. 

Species partially subject to the rule of man furnish a 
number of facts which enable us to compare the power of 
natural forces, when abandoned to their own action, with that 
of man in modifying a specific type. In all artificial F' es 
varieties are infinitely more numerous, more varied \ id 
more marked than wild races and varieties. Now the result 
of these transmutations of organisms has only consisted in 
the formation of races, never in the formation of a new 
species. Darwin himself accepts this conclusion implicitly 
•in his magnificent work on pigeons ; for when speaking of 
the races of pigeons he only says that the difference of form 
is such that if they had been found in a wild state, we should 
have been compelled to make at least three or four genera of 
them. The wild rock pigeons, the original stock of all our 

• 



98 The Human Species. 

domestic pigeons, only differ, on the contrary, in shades of 
colour. 

The result is always the same, whenever we can compare 
the work of nature with our own. When he has anything to 
do with any vegetable or animal species, man always changes 
its character, sometimes, after a lapse of some years, the 
change being much greater than that produced by nature 
since the species first came into existence. The effect of the 
conditions of life (milieu), of which we will speak presently, 
the struggle for existence and natural selection understood 
as I have just described it, the power which man possesses of 
directing natural forces and changing their resultant, easily 
explain this superiority of action. 

Consequently, without leaving the domain of facts, and 
only judging from what we know, we can say that mor- 
phology itself justifies the conclusion that one species has 
never produced another by means of derivation. To admit 
the contrary is to call in the unJtnowii, and to substitute a 
possibility for the results of experience. 

Physiology justifies a still stronger assertion. Upon this 
ground also man is shown to be as powerful as nature, and 
for the same reasons. With our cultivated plants and 
domestic animals, it is not only the primitive form which has 
undergone change, but certain functions also. If we had 
only enlarged and deformed the wild carrot and the wild 
radish, it would not have become more eatable. To render 
it agreeable to our taste, the production of certain substances 
had to be reduced, and that of others enlarged, that is to say, 
nutrition and secretion had to be modified. If the functions 
in wild animal stocks had remained permanent, we should 
have had none of those races which are distinguished by a 
difference in the colour of the hair, in the production of 
milk, in aptitude for work, or in the production of meat. If 
instinct itself had not obeyed the action of man, we should 
not have had in the same kennel, pointers, grey-hounds, 
truffle dogs and terriers. 

Nature produces nothing like this. To admit that similar 



Darwinism. 99 

results will one day follow from the action of natural forces 
is to appeal to the unknown, to possibility, and runs 
counter to all laws of analogy, and all the results furnished 
by experience and observation. 

Man's superiority over nature is quite as clearly shown in 
the group of phenomena, which relate to the question with 
which we are now dealing. 

We have seen •how rare are the cases of natural hybrids 
among plants themselves; we have also seen that no cases 
are known among mammalia. Now since man has begun 
to make experiments in this direction, he has increased the 
number of hybrids among plants, and among animals also. 
Moreover, he has succeeded in preserving for more than 
twenty generations, a hybrid which he has been able to 
protect from reversion and disordered variation. But we 
know the care that was necessary to insure the continuance 
of o^gilops speltceformis. If this plant had been left to itself, 
it would soon have disappeared. 

The single exception which is known confirms therefore 
the laiv of sterility among species left to themselves. Now 
this law is in direct opposition to all the theories, which like 
Darwinism, tend to confuse species and race. This has been 
clearly understood by Huxley and has caused him to say, " I 
adopt the theory of Darwin under the reserve that proof 
should be given that physiological species can be produced 
by selective crossing." 

This proof has not yet been given, for it is a strange abuse 
of words to call by the name of species, the series of hybrids 
whose history I have given above, viz. : the leporides and the 
chabins. But even if the proof demanded by Huxley were 
furnished, it does not follow that the greatest objection to the 
Darwinian theories would be removed. 

In fact, iu this theory, as in all those which rest upon 
gradual transmutation the new species derives its origin 
from a variety, possessing a character which is at first- 
rudimentary, but w r hich is developed very gradually, making 
some progress in each generation. The result of this is that 



ico The Human Species. 

between successive individuals the only difference is that of 
race. Now, as we have seen, the fertility among races of the 
same species remains constant, and consequently, in the 
hypothesis of Darwin, as in that of Lamarck, etc., the fertile 
crossings would in every sense of the word constantly confuse 
the original and the derived species which was in process of 
formation. The same cause having produced the same 
effects since the commencement of the world, the organic 
world would present the greatest confusion instead of its 
well-known order. 

Darwin, then, himself and his most enthusiastic adherents 
must admit that at some given moment these races became 
suddenly incapable of crossing with their predecessors. 
Whence then arises the sterility which separates species 1 
When, and at what moment w T ill the physiological bond be 
broken, which unites the original species with its modified 
descendants, even when this modification is carried as far as 
the ordinary ox and the niata ? What will be the deter- 
mining cause of this great fact which obtains through the 
whole economy of the organic kingdom \ 

In his work upon the Variation of Animals and Plants, 
Darwin replies : " Since species do not owe their mutual 
sterility to the accumulative action of natural selection, and 
a great number of considerations show us that they do not 
owe it to a creative act, we ought to admit that it has been- 
produced incidentally during their gradual formation, and 
is connected with some unknown modification of their 
organisation." 

We have seen that, in the last editions of the Origin of 
Species, he refuses to admit that fertility among mongrels is 
general, taking his- stand upon our ignorance on the subject 
of crossings between wild varieties (races). 

Thus, in order to admit the physiological transmutation of 
race into species, a fact which is contrary to all positive 
facts, Darwin and his followers reject the secular results of 
experience and observation, and substitute in their place a 
possible accident, and the unhnoivn. 



Darwinism. i o i 

The Darwinian theory relies entirely upon the possibility of 
this transmutation. We see upon what data the hypothesis 
of this possibility rests. Now, in a truly liberal spirit, 
I ask every unprejudiced man, however little he may be 
conversant with science, the question, is it upon such founda- 
tions that a general theory in physics or chemistry would be 
founded ? 

V. Moreover, the argument, of which we have just seen 
an example, may be found in every page of Darwinian 
writings. Whether a fundamental question, such as we have 
just been examining, or a minor problem, as the transmu- 
tation of the tomtit into the nuthatch, is under discussion, 
possibility, chance, and personal conviction are invariably 
adduced as convincing reasons. Is modern science estab- 
lished upon such foundations ? 

Darwin and his disciples wish that even our ignorance on 
the subject of certain phenomena should be considered as in 
their favour. The question has often been argued on the 
ground of palaeontology, and they have been asked to point 
out a single instance of those series which ousrht, according 
to them, to unite the parent species with its derivatives. 
They admit their inability ; but they reply that the extinct 
fauna and flora have left very few remains ; that we only 
know a small part of these ancient archives ; that the facts 
which favour their doctrine are doubtless buried under the 
waves with submerged continents, etc. "This manner of 
treating the question," Darwin concludes, "diminishes the 
difficulties considerably, if it does not cause them to dis- 
appear entirely." 

But, I again ask the question, in what branch of human 
knowledge, except these obscure subjects, should we regard 
problems as solved, for the very reason that we possess none 
of the requisite knowledge for their solution ? 

I do not intend to reproduce here the entire examination 
which I have made elsewhere of the transmutation theories 
in general, or of Darwinism in particular. The above obser- 
vations will suffice, I hope, to show why I could not accept 



102 The Hitman Species. 

even the most seductive of these theories. In certain points 
they agree with certain general facts and give an explanation 
of a certain number of phenomena. But all without excep- 
tion attain this result only by the aid of hypotheses which 
are in flagrant contradiction with other general facts, quite 
as fundamental as those which they explain. In particular, 
all these doctrines are based upon a gradual and progressive 
derivation, upon the confusion of race and species. Con- 
sequently they ignore an unquestionable physiological fact ; 
they are entirely in opposition with another fact, which 
follows from the first, and is conspicuous from every point 
of view, the isolation, namely, of specific groups from the 
earliest ages of the world, and the maintenance of organic 
order through all the revolutions of the globe. 

Such are my reasons for refusing my adherence to Darwin's 
theories. 

VII. The theory of the English naturalist is certainly the 
most vigorous effort which has been made to trace back the 
origin of the organic world by processes analogous to those 
which we have discovered in the genesis of the inorganic 
world, that is to say, in only having recourse to secondary 
causes. He has failed, as we see, like Lamarck. These 
eminent men will be succeeded by others who will attempt 
the solution of the same problem. Will they be more 
fortunate ? 

No one is less inclined than I am to place any limit upon 
the extension of human knowledge. Yet the extension of our 
scientific knowledge, in the widest sense of the term, is 
always subordinate to certain conditions. The most attentive 
examination, even of a human work, will never teach us 
anything of the processes which have permitted its realisa- 
tion. The cleverest watchmaker, if he has not followed 
studies perfectly foreign to his vocation, will know nothing 
of the origin of iron, of its transformation into steel, of the 
rolling and tempering of a main spring. The minutest study 
of that metallic ribbon which he knows so well, will tell him 
nothing of its origin, nothing of the process of its fabrication. 



Darwinism. 103 

To know more he must leave his shop and visit the furnaces, 
the forges, and the rolling mills. 

In the works of nature it is the same. With nature as 
well as with ourselves, the phenomena which 'produce are 
very different from those which preserve, and from those 
displayed in the object produced. 

The most complete anatomical and physiological study of 
an animal or of a full-grown plant will certainly teach 11 s 
nothing about the metamorphoses of the microscopic cell 
from which sprang the dog, the elephant, and man himself. 

Now hitherto we have only directed our attention to 
species already formed. We can therefore learn nothing 
more relative to their mode of production. 

But we know that the unknown cause which has given 
birth to extinct and living species has been manifested at 
different times and intermittingly upon the surface of the 
globe. Nothing authorises us to suppose that it is exhausted. 
Although it appears to have generally acted at times which 
correspond to great geological movements, it is not impossible 
that it may be at work on some point of the earth even at 
this epoch of relatively profound rest. If this is the case, 
perhaps some happy chance will throw a little light upon the 
great mystery of organic origins. But until experience and 
observation have taught us something, all who wish to remain 
faithful to true science, will accept the existence and succes- 
sion of species as a primordial fact. He will apply to all 
what Darwin applies to his single prototype ; and, in order 
to explain what is still inexplicable, he will not sacrifice to 
hypotheses, however ingenious they may be, the exact and 
positive knowledge which has been won by nearly two 
centuries of work. 



CHAPTER XL 

ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.— DIFFERENT HYPOTHESES. 

I. The preceding chapter might enable me to dispense 
with a discussion of the applications which have been made 
of Darwinism to the history of man. Nevertheless, apart 
from the curious points in the subject itself, some discussion 
of it will be necessary, for it will not be devoid of instruction. 

Lamarck endeavoured to show how, by means of his theory 
of habit, it was possible to conceive the direct transmutation 
of the chimpanzee into man. The Darwinists also agree in 
connecting man with the apes. Nevertheless none of them 
point out any of the species at present existing as our imme- 
diate ancestor ; on this point they differ from their illustrious 
predecessor. It might be supposed that Yogt had determined 
this point if we take literally some passages of his Lecons 
sur Uhomme. But the Genevese savant has clearly ex- 
pressed his theory in his Memoire sur Us Microcephales. 
He carries back the point of departure common to the two 
types to an anterior ancestor. Darwin, Wallace, Filippi, 
Lubbock, Haeckel, etc., connect man still more closely with the 
apes. The latter states his conclusions in the following terms: — 

" The human race is a branch of the catarrh ine group ; he 
was developed in the old world, and sprang from apes of 
this group, which have long been extinct." 

II. Vogt disagrees with his scientific colleagues in an 
important point. He admits that different simian stocks 
may have given rise to different human groups. The 
populations of the old and the new world would thus be 
descendants of the different forms which are peculiar to the 
two continents. On this hypothesis, Australia and Polynesia, 



Theories of Darwin and Haeckel. 105 

where there never have been apes, must necessarily have been 
peopled by means of migration. 

The eminent professor of Geneva, moreover, always con- 
fines himself to a somewhat vague statement of his ideas 
relative to the genealogies which he thinks fit to attribute to 
the different groups of mankind. 

III. Darwin and Haeckel have been bolder. The former 
has published an important work upon the Descent of Man, 
and the latter in his History of the Creation of Organised 
Beings has treated the same subject in detail, and given 
the genealogical table of our supposed ancestors, starting 
from the most simple known animals. The master and the 
disciple agree almost invariably, and it is to Haeckel himself 
that Darwin refers the reader who is curious to know the 
human genealogy in detail. Let us glance rapidly at the 
origin assigned to us by the German naturalist. 

Haeckel considers as the first ancestor of all living beings 
the monera, which are nothing more than the amcebw as 
understood by Dujardin. From this initial form man has 
reached the state in which we now find him, by passing 
through twenty-one typical transitory forms. In the present 
state of things our nearest neighbours are the anthropomor- 
phous or tailless catarrhine apes, such as the orang, the 
gorilla, the chimpanzee, etc. All are sprung from the same 
stock, from the type of the tailed catarrJiine apes, the latter 
are descended from the prosimiai, a type which is now repre- 
sented by the macaucos, the loris, etc. Next come the mar- 
supials, which form the 17th stage of our evolution ; further 
examination is useless. 

Although the distance between anthropomorphous apes 
and man appears to be but small to Haeckel, he has never- 
theless thought it necessary to admit the existence of an 
intermediate stage between ourselves and the most highly 
developed ape. This purely hypothetical being, of which 
not the slightest vestige has been found, is supposed to be 
detached from the tailless catarrhine apes, and to constitute 
the 21st stage of the modification which has led to the 



106 The Human Species. 

human form, Haeckel calls it the ape-man, or the pithe- 
coid-man. He denies him the gift of articulate speech as 
well as the development of the intelligence and self-con- 
sciousness. 

Darwin also admits the existence of this link between man 
and apes. He says nothing as to his intellectual faculties. 
On the other hand he traces out his physical portrait, basing 
his remarks upon a certain number of exceptional peculiarities 
observed in the human species, which he regards as so many 
phenomena of partial atavism. "The earliest ancestors of 
man," he says, "were without doubt once covered with hair; 
both sexes having beards ; their ears were pointed and capable 
of movement ; and their bodies were provided with a tail 
having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were 
acted on by many muscles, which now only occasionally 
reappear in man, but which are still normally present in the 
quadrumana. The great artery and nerve of the humerus 
ran through a supracondyloid foramen. At this, or some 
earlier period, the intestine gave forth a much larger diverti- 
culum or ccecum than that now existiDg. The foot, judging 
from the condition of the great toe in the foetus, was then 
prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in 
their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land ; the 
males were provided with canine teeth which served as 
formidable weapons." 

IV. In attributing a tail to our first direct ancestors 
Darwin connects him with the type of tailed catarrhines, and 
consequently removes him a stage backward in the scale of 
evolutions. The English naturalist is not satisfied to take 
his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and, like 
Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct variance 
with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the 
principal charms of Darwinism, whose force I am far from 
denying. 

In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not 
take place, either by chance or in every direction. They 
are ruled by certain laws which are due to the organisation 



Theories of Darwin and Haeckel. 107 

itself. If an organism is once modified in a given direction, 
it can undergo secondary or terliary transmutations, but will 
still preserve the impress of the original. It is the law of 
permanent characterisation which alone permits Darwin 
to explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics and 
their numerous relations. It is by virtue of this law that all 
the descendants of the first mollusc have been molluscs ; all 
the descendants of the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. 
It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the 
doctrine. 

It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types 
can be referred to a common ancestor, whose characters were 
not clearly developed, but the one cannot be the descendant 
of the other. 

Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in 
respect to type. Their organs, as I have already remarked, 
correspond almost exactly term for term ; but these organs 
are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so 
arranged that he is essentially a ivalker, while in apes they 
necessitate his being a climber just as strongly. 

There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction 
which had already been proved, as regards the inferior apes, 
by the works of Vicq d'Azyr, Lawrence, Serres, etc. The 
investigations of Duvernoy on the gorilla, of Gratiolet and 
Mv d'Alix upon the chimpanzee, have established the fact 
that the anthropomorphous apes possess the same funda- 
mental character in every point. Moreover, a glance at the 
page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton 
and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes, is a 
sufficiently convincing proof of the fact. 

The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of 
the logical application of the law of permanent characterisa- 
tion, is that man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is 
already characterised as an ape, any more than a catarrhine 
tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A walk- 
ing animal cannot be descended from a climbing one. This 
was clearly understood by Yogt. In placing man among the 



108 The Human Species. 

primates he declares, without hesitation, that the lowest 
class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor) 
from which the different types of this family have originated 
and diverged. 

We must then place the origin of man beyond the last 
ape if we wish to adhere to one of the laws most emphatically 
necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come to the 
prosimice of Haeckel, the loris, indris, etc. But these animals 
also are climbers ; we must go further, therefore, in search of 
our first direct ancestor. But the genealogy traced by Haeckel 
brings us from the latter to the marsupials. 

From man to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. 
Now neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate 
types which ought to serve as landmarks. This difficulty 
causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin. We know that 
he considers the want of information upon similar questions 
as a proof in his favour. Haeckel doubtless is just as little 
embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theo- 
retical pithecoid man, and it is not the only instance in 
which he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete 
his genealogical table. Take as an instance his words upon 
the sozoura (14th stage), an amphibious animal which is 
equally unknown to science. " The proof of its existence arises 
from the necessity of an intermediate type between the 13th 
and the 14th stage." 

Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwin- 
ism itself, the origin of man must be placed beyond the 18th 
stage, and since it becomes, in consequence necessary to fill 
up the gap between marsupials and man, will Haeckel admit 
the existence of four unknown intermediate groups, instead 
of one ? Will he complete his genealogy in this manner ? It 
is not for me to answer. 

V. Darwin and Haeckel will most certainly think it very 
strange that a representative of the old school, a man who 
believes in the reality of species, should have the pretension 
to be better acquainted with the application of the laws of 
Darwinism than themselves, and to point out serious lapses 



Theories of Darwin and Haeckel. 109 

in the applications they have made. Let us take our stand 
then on the ground of facts. There we shall at once find 
proof that this genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded 
on a material anatomical error. 

Both Darwin and Haeckel connect the simian series with 
a type which would now be represented by the lemuridce, 
which the latter designates by the term prosimioe. The only 
grounds which Darwin assigns for this opinion are certain 
characters taken especially from dentition. Haeckel goes 
back to embryogenesis. 

We know that with the exception of the marsupials 
(kangaroos, sarrigue), and the monotremata (ornithorhynchus, 
echidna), all mammals have a 'placenta, an organ essentially 
composed of a network of blood-vessels, which unites the 
mother to the foetus, and serves for the nutrition of the latter. 
With the ruminants, the edentata, and the cetacea, the 
placenta is simple and diffuse, that is to say, the tufts of the 
blood-vessels are developed upon the entire surface of the 
foetal envelope, and are in direct communication with the 
inner surface of the uterus. In the rest of the mammals the 
placenta is double ; half being derived from the mother, and 
half from the foetus, or rather its external envelope. A special 
membrane called the Decidua covers the interior of the 
uterus, and unites the placenta?. Haeckel, correctly attaching 
great importance to these anatomical differences, divides 
mammals into two great groups : the indeciduata, which 
have no decidua, and the deciduata, which possess it. 

Among the latter the placenta can surround the mam- 
malian ovum like a girdle (zonoplacentcdia) , or form a kind 
of circular disc more or less developed (discoplacentalia). 
Man, apes, bats, insectivora, and rodents, present the latter 
arrangement, and thus form a natural group to which no 
sonoplacential, and, of course, no indeciduate mammals. can 
be admitted. 

Haeckel, without the least hesitation, adds his prosimice 
to the groups which I have just enumerated, that is to say, 
he attributes to them a decidua and a discoidal placenta. 



no The Human Species. 

Now the anatomical investigations of MM. Alphonse Milne 
Edwards and Grandidier upon the animals brought by the 
latter from Madagascar place it beyond all doubt that the 
prosimiae of Haeckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. 
They are indeciduata. Far from any possibility of their 
being the ancestors of the apes, according to the principle 
laid down by Haeckel himself, they cannot even be regarded 
as the ancestors of the zonoplacential mammals, the carnivora 
for instance, and ought to be connected with the pachyder- 
mata, the edentata and the cetacea. 

Darwin and Haeckel will, perhaps reply that when they 
made their genealogies, the embryogenesis of the prosimiae 
was not known. But why then represent them as one of the 
intermediate links to which they attach so much importance ? 
Their process is always the same, considering the unknown 
as a proof in favour of their theory. 

VI. The necessity, which I think has been clearly proved, 
of seeking elsewhere than among the prosimise for the link 
which is required between the marsupials and the apes, 
would not invalidate the relationship between the latter and 
man. There are, however, other facts which are irreconcilable 
with the theorjr. 

M. Pruner Bey, resuming the descriptive and anatomical 
works which have been carried on till within the last few 
years, has shown that the comparison of man with the 
anthropomorphous apes brings to light a fact which is sub- 
ject to very few exceptions, the existence, namely, of an 
inverse order in the development of the principal organs. 
The researches of Welker upon the sphenoidal angle of 
Virchow lead to the same conclusion, for in man the angle 
diminishes from the time of birth, whilst in the ape it is 
always increasing, so much so that sometimes it is effaced. 
It is upon the base of the cranium that the German anatomist 
has remarked this inverse order, the importance of which 
cannot escape notice. 

A similar contrast has been remarked by Gratiolet upon 
the brain itself. The following are his observations upon 



HaeckeFs Theories — Pithecoid Man, 1 1 1 

this subject. In the ape the temporal sphenoidal convolu- 
tions, which form the middle lobe, make their appearance 
and are completed before the anterior convolutions which 
form the frontal lobe. In man, on the contrary, the frontal 
convolutions are the first to appear, and those of the middle 
lobe are formed later. 

It is evident, especially after the most fundamental 
principles of Darwinism, that an organised being cannot be 
a descendant of another whose development is in an inverse 
order to its own. Consequently, in accordance with these 
principles, man cannot be considered as the descendant of 
any simian type whatever. 

VII. I have said above that palaeontology has never shown 
anything which recalls in the slightest degree the hypothetical 
pithecoid man of Haeckel. A hope was felt that what could 
not be found among extinct forms might be found among 
living ones. Yogt has compared the brain of microcephali 
to that of the anthropomorphous apes, and Haeckel has 
represented in his genealogical table of idiots, eretins and 
microcephali as actual representatives of his speechless man. 
These beings, with their small brain and incomplete faculties, 
are, according to these two naturalists, cases of atavism, and 
recal the normal state of our most remote direct ancestors. 

Here we have another instance of the curious method of 
reasoning familiar to Darwinists. Microcephalism, idiotcy, 
and cretinism constitute so man}' teratological or pathological 
states. They belong, consequently, to the very numerous 
groups of facts which have long been studied. If some of 
these facts can be regarded as phenomena of atavism, why 
should it be otherwise with the rest ? Why attribute to 
atavism a single character only in cretins and microcephali, 
and refer the other to teratology and pathology ? This is 
evidently an entirely arbitrary kind of treatment, and as 
much opposed as possible to the true scientific method. 

After the works of teratologists, after the experiments of 
Geoffroy, so ably resumed and completed by M. Dareste, the 
part played by pathogenic causes, even by external causes, in 
6 



ii2 The Human Species. 

arrested development cannot be denied. Now microcephalism 
is nothing else than arrested development acting on the 
cranium and its contents. But this is not an isolated case. 
Other organs and functions in microcephali suffer in the 
same manner. They have been proved to be always sterile, 
and certainly sterility is not a phenomenon which can be 
referred to atavism. 

Thus among microcephali a teratogenic cause is clearly 
proved to have acted on part of the organism, viz., the 
generative organs. What reason can be alleged for attri- 
buting alterations of the cranium and brain to an entirely 
different cause ? By virtue of what principle can two facts 
be separated, which observation has shown to be so inti- 
mately connected with each other? Why should the first 
be appealed to as an argument and nothing said about the 
second ? Is it not evident that this is an entirely arbitrary 
kind of procedure, and actuated solely by the requirements 
of theory ? 

The general plan of the brain is fundamentally the same in 
all the mammalia and in man. Upon this point, as upon 
every other, the resemblance is greatest when the latter is 
compared with the anthropomorphous apes. When, for some 
reason or other, his brain is altered and reduced, as in the 
microcephali, is it at all surprising that fresh resemblances 
should arise. Tbe contrary would be unintelligible. 

This is a fact upon which Yogt has especially insisted, and 
he has described from this point of view several interesting 
details which render less general some of the results obtained 
by M. Gratiolet. But it is a remarkable fact that these 
new relations are not established with the most highly de- 
veloped apes, but with the tailed apes of the new world, 
with the platyrrhini, which are excluded by Haeckel and 
Darwin from the human ancestral series. Thus, the Dar- 
winian theory itself protests against the comparison between 
the microcephali and our pretended pithecoid ancestors 

The relations which we are discussing do not, moreover, 
reach a similarity which would authorise the conclusions of 



Vogt's Theories — Simian Characters. 113 

the Genevese savant. The brains of microcephali, though 
often less voluminous and less convoluted than those of the 
anthropoid apes, according to Gratiolet, do not become at 
all similar to them. This proposition is confirmed by the 
work of Vogt. 

The case is the same with the skeleton as with the brain. 
I will here appeal to an authority, which none of my adver- 
saries can reject, that, namely, of Huxley. After having 
protested against the statements of those who declare " that 
the structural differences between man and apes are small 
and insignificant," the eminent anatomist adds that "every 
bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which it can be dis- 
tinguished from the corresponding human bone, and that, in 
the present state of creation at least, no intermediary being 
fills the gap which separates man from the troglodyte." 
In the general conclusion of his book, Huxley moreover re- 
cognises the fact that the fossil human remains hitherto dis- 
covered do not indicate any approach towards the pithecoid 
form. 

VIII. After the formal declarations of a naturalist, whose 
Darwinian convictions place him beyond all suspicion of 
partiality, how is it that we continually find the expression 
simian character employed a propos of the most insignificant 
modifications of some human type of which no one gives a 
precise description ? It is, to say the least, an abuse of 
words, against which I have often protested. We have just 
seen that this expression assumes an anatomical fact which 
does not exist, and which, consequently, constitutes an error. 
It has, moreover, the inconvenience of being understood 
literally by the ignorant, and sometimes of deceiving even 
educated men, and of giving rise to a belief in imaginary 
degradations and comparisons. 

In fact, man and the rest of the vertebrata are constructed 
upon the same fundamental plan. Between him and the 
other members of this group numerous relations exist. 
Organised beings are not crystals whose forms are mathe- 
matically defined ; with the former the whole of the body 



H4 The Human Species. 

and each part of this whole oscillate between limits whose 
extent has not yet been fixed, but which is at times con- 
siderable. By these very oscillations the customary relations 
are continually modified, not only between man and the 
apes, but between man and the rest of the vertebrata. If 
we compare man to any animal type whatever, if we apply 
the same method to this comparison, and the same termino- 
logy, we shall arrive at singular conclusions. I will quote a 
single example. 

The most important fact in connection with the brain is 
certainly not its absolute development. It is the relation of 
this development to that of the rest of the body. The agree- 
ment upon this point, when animals are the subject of discus- 
sion, is general. It should be the same when the discussion 
is on man. Undoubtedly upon this ground of relative 
superiority or inferiority, upon which certain anthropologists 
so readily take their stand a propos of races or individuals, 
the relations of which I speak constitute one of the most 
striking and essential characters. 

I subjoin some of these relations taken from a table of 
Duvernoy, and in which the weight of the brain is taken 
as unity. 

Infant . . . 1 : 22 -p , , ( Field Mouse . 1 : 31 

, Youth . . . . 1 : 25 Koaents • j Mouse . . . 1 : 43 

< Adult . . .1:30 c?rnivora j Mole . . .1:36 

Old . . . . 1 : 35 ^ armvora j Dogs . 1 : 47 1 : 305 

{Blue Tit . . 1 : 12 

Canary . . . 1 : 14 

Cole Tit . . 1 : 18 

Sparrow . . 1 : 25 

Chaffinch . . 1 : 27 

The man in question is the European White. Now from 
this table we see that from infancy to old age the relation 
of the brain to the rest of the body keeps diminishing. Are 
we to conclude then from this that the youth is degraded 
relatively to the infant, and that the adult or the old man 
has assumed a simian character ? 

We see, moreover, that there ought to be some under- 
standing as to the word simian itself. If the gibbon, which 



Intellectual Development — Wallace s Theories. 115 

belongs to the type of our supposed ancestors, has a brain 
relatively smaller than ours, it is otherwise with the three 
members of the genus cebus given in the table. The latter 
are superior to the anthropoid ; the two first show exactly 
the same relation as the infant and youth ; the third sur- 
passes the adult man. But all three are surpassed by the 
two tits and the canary. 

Consequently, if we are right in regarding the human 
race, or the human individual whose brain is below the 
mean by several grammes, as tending towards the anthro- 
poid ape, we ought to consider the race, or the individual 
whose brain is above the mean as approximating to the 
cebus, or even the passerines or conirostres. If the first 
comparison is admissible, the second is equally so. 

We can then say with the learned anatomist whose autho- 
rity I have so often appealed to : " The microcephali, how- 
ever reduced their brain may be, are not brutes ; they are 
merely undeveloped men." Or again, we may say with 
M. Best, whose testimony cannot be suspected in such a 
matter, that in their development apes do not resemble 
man, and, conversely, that the human type when degraded 
does not resemble the ape. 

IX. From the pithecoid man of Darwin and Haeckel, 
from the speechless man who used his teeth as weapons, 
to the man of our age, the distance is still very great. How 
has it been filled up ? How has this intelligence been 
developed which is able in many cases to hold nature herself 
in subjection \ It is Wallace who has especially answered 
this question in the name of the theory of which he is one 
of the founders. We shall see at the same time that he 
admits the imperfection of this theory, when he discusses the 
peculiar attributes of the human species. 

It is well known that this naturalist shares with Darwin 
and M. Naudin, the honour of having sought in natural 
selection for an explanation of organic origins. But our 
fellow countryman has confined himself to a sketch the 
fundamental character of which he has recently entirely 



1 1 6 The Human Species. 

modified. Darwin has embraced the problem as a whole 
and in its details ; he has added to his first work several 
publications upon subjects very different in appearance, but 
all of which tend to the same end. He may with justice 
be considered as the chief of the school. 

Wallace, who almost anticipated Darwin in the publi- 
cation of ideas which are common to both, recognises him 
as his master on all occasions. He has discussed a small 
number of points in special memoirs which never cover 
much ground. From not attempting the solution of all the 
questions suggested by the theory, he has neither met with 
so many or such serious difficulties as his eminent rival. 
This, perhaps, explains the fact that he generally shows 
himself more precise and logical. He therefore, always 
possessed considerable authority among the partisans of 
Darwinism, until he published his special views on man. 

According to Wallace, immediate and personal utility is 
the only cause which sets selection in action. This is funda- 
mentally the theory of Darwin ; but the latter has allowed 
himself to be influenced by comparisons or metaphors, which 
have raised sharp criticisms, which have perhaps deceived 
him, and which he employs more or less to evade his 
difficulties. We never meet with the same in Wallace, who 
accepts all the consequences to which his absolute principle 
leads him. 

According to Wallace, utility alone is able to account for 
the manner in which inferior animal forms could have pro- 
duced apes, and afterwards a being having almost all the 
physical characters of man as he is now. This race lived 
in herds scattered throughout the hot regions of the ancient 
continent. It was not, however, wanting in true sociability ; 
it possessed the perception of sensations, but was incapable 
of thought; moral sense and sympathetic feelings were un- 
known to it. It was still only a material outline of the 
human being, yet superior to the tailed man of Darwin, and 
to the pithecoid man of Haeckel. 

Towards the earlier part of the tertiary period, adds 



Intellectual Development — Wallace s Theories. 117 

Wallace, an unknotun cause began to accelerate the de- 
velopment of the intelligence in this anthropoid being. It 
soon played a preponderating part in the existence of man. 
The perfection of this faculty became incomparably more 
useful than any other organic modification. Henceforward 
the powerful modifying agent of selection acted necessarily 
almost entirely in this direction. The physical characters 
already acquired remained almost unaltered, while the organs 
of the intelligence and the intelligence itself were perfected 
more and more in each generation. Animals unaffected by 
this unknown cause which separates us from them, con- 
tinued to undergo morphological transmutations, so that 
since the Miocene epoch there has been a great change in 
the terrestrial fauna. With man only did the form remain 
the same. We ought not, therefore, to be surprised to find 
in the Quaternary epoch skulls like those of Denise and 
Engis, resembling those of men of the present age. 

The superiority acquired by the intelligence has, moreover, 
removed our race for ever from the law of the action of 
morphological transmutations. His intellectual and moral 
faculties only are from this time subject to the power of 
selection, which will cause the disappearance of inferior 
races and their replacement by a new race, the lowest 
individual of which would be, in our time, a superior man. 

After having read the pages, of which I have just made a 
summary, we cannot but be surprised to find Wallace declare 
that natural selection by itself is incapable of producing 
from an anthropoid animal, a man such as we find in the 
most savage nations known to us. He thus makes the 
human species an exception to the laws, which, according to 
him, rule all other living beings. There is a double interest 
in following Darwin's rival in this new path. 

Wallace begins by reminding us that natural selection 
rests entirely upon the principle of immediate utility, re- 
lative only to the conditions of the struggle maintained at 
the time by the individuals constituting the species. Darwin 
in all his works declares, on different occasions, this same 



1 1 8 The Human Species. 

principle, upon which rests, in fact, all his statements upon 
adaptation, the possibility of retrogressive transmutations, etc. 

It results necessarily from this principle, that selection 
cannot produce variations in any way injurious to any 
being whatever. Darwin has often declared that a single 
well-attested case of this kind would destroy his whole 
theory. 

But it is evident, adds Wallace, that selection is as incapa- 
ble of producing a useless variation ; it cannot then develop 
an organ in proportions which would go beyond its degree of 
present utility. 

Now Wallace shews very clearly that in the savage there 
are organs whose development is out of all proportion with 
their present utility, and even faculties and physical cha- 
racters which are either useless or injurious, at least to the 
individual. " But," says he. " if it can be proved that these 
modifications, though dangerous or useless at the time of 
their first appearance, have become much more useful, and 
are now indispensable to the complete development of the 
intellectual and moral nature of man, we ought to believe 
in the existence of an intelligent action, foreseeing and pro- 
viding for the future, just as we should do, when we see a 
breeder set to work to produce a definite improvement in 
any direction in any cultivated plant or domestic animal." 

The relative development of the body and the brain, the 
organ of intelligence, is one of the points upon which our 
author insists most strongly. The height of the orang, he 
says, is almost equal to that of man ; the gorilla is much 
taller and bigger. Nevertheless, if we represent by ten the 
average volume of the brain in the anthropoid apes, this 
same volume will be represented by twenty-six in savages, 
and by thirty-two in civilised men. The English naturalist 
also makes the remark, that among savages, the Esquimaux, 
for instance, we find individuals the capacity of whose skull 
almost reaches the maximum which is given for the most 
highly developed nations. 

Finally, Wallace, relying upon the experiments and 



Intellectual Development — Wallaces Theories. 119 

calculations of Galton, admits distinctly that though the 
brain of savages is to that of civilised man in the proportion 
of five to six, the intellectual manifestations are, at the 
most, that of one to one thousand. The material develop- 
ment is, then, out of all proportion to the function. A 
brain, a little more voluminous than that of the gorilla, 
would, in the eyes of the eminent traveller, be perfectly 
sufficient for the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, of 
Australia, Tasmania, and Tierra del Fuego. 

Wallace explains the development of the ideas of justice 
and benevolence by the advantages which would result from 
them to the tribe and to each individual. But faculties 
essentially individual, and without immediate utility to 
others, are not subject, according to him, to selection. 
" How," says he, " could the struggle for existence, the 
victory of the most fitted and natural selection give any 
aid to the development of mental faculties," such as ideal 
conceptions of space and time, of eternity and infinity, the 
artistic feeling, abstract ideas of number and form, without 
which arithmetic and geometry are impossible % 

For a much more cogent reason, the development of the 
moral sense in the savage cannot be accounted for by con- 
siderations taken from utility, whether individual or collec- 
tive. Wallace insists upon this point at some length ; he 
quotes examples which prove that this feeling exists, in all 
which is most delicate and most opposed to utilitarian 
notions, among the most savage tribes of Central India. We 
could give many examples of this fact ; among others, that 
the Red-skins have the greatest respect for their word of 
honour, though it should entail torture and death. 

Our author bases numerous arguments upon the physical 
examination of man. " It is perfectly certain," he says, 
" that natural selection could not have produced the present 
naked body of man from an ancestor covered with hair, for 
such a modification, far from being useful, would be injurious, 
at least in certain respects;" in civilised man a number 
of movements are executed by the hand of which savages 



120 The Human Species. 

have not the slightest idea, although no anatomical differ- 
ence exists in the structure of the superior members ; the 
larynx of our singers is constructed similarly to that of 
savages, and, nevertheless, what a contrast between the 
sounds produced ! 

From all these facts Wallace concludes that the brain, 
hand, and larynx of savages possess latent aptitudes, which 
being temporarily useless cannot be attributed to natural 
selection. Man, moreover, has not the power of acquiring 
them himself. Foreign intervention therefore is necessary, 
for the explanation of their existence. Wallace attributes 
this intervention to a superior intelligence which acted on 
the human species, just as the latter has acted on the 
rock-pigeon to produce from it the pouter or the carrier, 
and which employed analogous processes. 

In short, natural selection, regulated by the laws of nature 
only, is sufficient to produce wild species ; artificial or 
human selection can produce improved races of animals 
and plants ; a kind of divine selection must have produced 
the present man, and can alone bring him to the highest 
pitch of intellectual and moral development. 

In advancing this latter hypothesis", Wallace declares 
that it no more impairs the theory of natural selection than 
the latter is weakened by the fact of artificial selection. 
Few, I think, will accept this proposition. The chief apology 
for Darwinism in the eyes of men of science, its great charm 
to all its partisans, lies in the pretensions which it puts 
forward of connecting organic origins, those of man as well 
as those of plants, with the single action of second causes ; 
and to explain the present state of living beings by physical 
and physiological laws, just as geology and astronomy explain 
the present state of the material world entirely by the 
general laws of matter. In making the intervention of an 
intelligent will necessary for the realisation of the human 
being, Wallace has set himself in opposition to the very 
essence of the theory. Such is the opinion of most Darwin- 
ists, who have treated him somewhat as a deserter. 



M. Naudiris Theories. 121 

I am not therefore called upon to examine this latter 
hypothesis of Wallace. I am, however, at liberty to state 
that most of the facts, which have induced one of the 
founders of Darwinism to separate from his chief upon so 
important a point, retain all their value as objections. The 
mistake of Wallace consists in failing to see that his 
statements upon the subject of man apply equally to 
animals, and Claparede has justly reproached him with a 
want of logic on this point. He has been less happy in the 
answers which he has made to his old ally. Doubtless, he 
who regards the question exclusively from a Darwinian 
point of view, and accepts as true everything which I have 
endeavoured to shew to be false, will readily find a solution 
for many of the difficulties raised by Wallace. But his 
statements upon latent aptitudes, upon the superior facul- 
ties of the human mind, and upon the moral sense, are very 
difficult to refute. Claperede has only alluded to the 
former. Darwin has attempted to go further ; but his 
theories and hypotheses upon these important questions do 
not appear to me to have given much satisfaction to the 
most devoted of his followers. I cannot here enter into a 
discussion, which, to have any value, should be carried to 
some length, and I refer the reader to the work upon the 
Descent of Man, and to my articles in the Journal des 
Savants. 

X. I cannot close this short account of the origins, which 
have been attributed to man during late years, without 
mentioning the new theory which has lately been put 
forward by an eminent botanist, to whose works I have 
often had to allude. M. Naudin has been one of the most 
important of Darwin's precursors. Six years before the 
English naturalist, he compared the action exercised by 
natural forces in the production of species to the methods 
used by man in obtaining races; he admitted the deriva- 
tion and filiation of species ; he compared the vegetable 
kingdom to a tree " where roots, mysteriously hidden in 
the depths of cosmogenic time, have produced a limited 



122 The Human Species. 

number of brandies successively divided and subdivided. 
The first branches represent the primordial types of the 
kingdom, the subsequent ramifications the existing species." 
We cannot fail to recognise in these words an idea very 
similar to Darwinism, 

M. Naudin now proposes an evolution theory which is* 
very different. He " entirely excludes the hypothesis of 
natural selection, unless the sense of the word is changed 
so as to make it synonymous with survival" He rejects 
no less strongly the idea of gradual transmutations, which 
require millions of years to effect the transmutation of a 
single plant. He insists, on the contrary, upon the sudden- 
ness with which most of the variations observed in plants 
have been produced, and regards it as a representation of 
what must have taken place in the successive genesis of 
living beings. Let us remark in passing, that Darwin, in 
the last edition of his work recognises the reality of these 
sudden leaps, which have taken place without transitions 
between one generation and another, and confesses that he 
has not taken sufficient account of them in his earlier 
writings. 

M. Naudin admits the existence of a protoplasma or 
primordial blastema, the origin of which he does not 
pretend to explain nor its entrance into action. Under 
the influence of the organo-plastic or evolutive force there 
were formed proto-organisms of a very simple structure,, 
asexual, and endowed with the power of producing by buds 
and with a great activity meso-organisms, similar to the 
first, though already more complicated. With each genera- 
tion forms are multiplied, and become more pronounced, and 
nature rapidly passes on to the adult state. The beings in 
question were not, however, species. They were not com- 
plete beings, but merely a kind of larvce, whose sole duty 
was to serve as transitions between the primitive blastema 
and the definite forms. Dispersed in different regions of 
the globe, they have carried everywhere the germs of future 
forms which evolution had to produce from them. From 



M. Naudhis Theories. 123 

the creative character which distinguished it at first, the 
evolutive force exhausted by its very action, acquired a 
'preservative character. Forms are now integrated. They 
preserve, however, a residue of plasticity ; they vary under 
the influence of certain conditions, and hence results the 
multitude of forms which the same species now presents. 

The proto- and meso-organisms contained in themselves, 
each according to its position in the order of evolution, the 
rudiments of kingdoms, branches, classes, orders, families, 
and genera. Points where they were fixed, became so many 
centres of creation. Moreover, they have not engendered 
simultaneously all the forms which they were capable of 
producing. There have been considerable intervals between 
the production of living beings, which explains why groups 
of the same order have not been contemporaneous. 

Organic types, even those least marked, have not passed 
into each other. The paths followed by the evolutive force 
have always been divergent. "Let us picture to ourselves," 
says M. Naudin, " the meso-organism which has been the 
source of the mammalia ; ever since its appearance, all the 
mammalian orders, including the human order, were ferment- 
ing in it. Before their appearance, they were virtually 
distinct, in the sense that the evolutive force's were already 
distributed, and the method of their effecting, each in its 
proper time, the production of these different orders, already 
defined. This is a similar phenomenon to that of the 
evolution of organs in a growing embryo, where we see 
springing from a common and uniform origin, parts at first 
similar, but which are impelled in a determinate direction 
each by its own particular future!' 

M. INaudin, as we see, in order to support his theory, 
appeals to the embryogenic phenomena, to which the 
Darwinists also look for testimony in favour of their doc- 
trines. The learned botanist, however, attaches much more 
importance to the metamorphoses which take place subse- 
quently to the egg. He recognises true proto-organisms 
in the pro-embryo of mosses, in the larva? of insects, and of 



1 24 The Human Species. 

many other inferior animals. He lays particular stress upon 
the phenomena of alternate generation, as representing what 
has already takeu place, or better, as representing in part 
" the ancient and general process of creation." 

According to M. Naudin, man was subject to the common 
law. and the Mosaic account is at the same time very true 
and full of instruction. In its first phase, mankind was 
concealed within a temporary organism, already distinct from 
all others, and incapable of contracting an alliance with any 
of them. This is Adam, who sprang from a primordial 
blastema called clay in the Bible. At this epoch, he was, 
properly speaking, neither male nor female ; the two sexes 
were not yet differentiated. " It is from this larval form of 
mankind, that the evolutive force effected the completion of 
the species. For the accomplishment of this great phe- 
nomenon, Adam had to pass through a phase of immobility 
and unconsciousness, very analogous to the nymphal state of 
animals undergoing metamorphosis." This is the sleep 
mentioned in the Bible, during which the work of differentia- 
tion was accomplished, to use the words of M. Naudin, by a 
process of germination, similar to that of medusae and 
ascidians. Mankind, thus constituted physiologically, would 
retain a sufficient evolutive force for the rapid production of 
the various great human races. 

Passing over the comparisons established by M. Naudin, I 
will confine myself to a single observation upon all these 
ideas ; properly speaking, they do not form a scientific 
theory. 

When we fertilise by artificial means the egg of a frog, we 
know that we determine an entire series of phenomena, 
which results in the formation of a germ, then in that of an 
embiyo, which will be established by a succession of meta- 
morphoses, in that of a tadpole, which will be equally subject 
to metamorphoses, and in that of a definite animal which will 
assume all the characters of the species. So far as man 
can make a being, we make a frog when we fertilise an egg. 

If the first cause, with which M. Naudin immediately 



M. Naudins Theories. 125 

connects his primordial blastema, has made potentially in 
this blastema all past, present, and future beings, as well 
as the power of producing them at the proper time, with 
all their distinctive characters, It has, in reality, created 
all these beings en "masse. We do not see what kind of 
action is reserved for second causes ; unless it is, perhaps, 
the power of accelerating or retarding, of obstructing or 
favouring the appearance of types of different value, when 
number and relations have been immutably determined 
beforehand. But M. Naudin has not even mentioned their 
part in this evolution of the organic world. That science 
which is only occupied with second causes has, therefore, 
nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin. It can neither 
praise nor criticise it. 

XL To explain the origin of the world in which we live, 
that of beings surrounding us, and our own, is evidently one 
of the most general aspirations of the human mind. The 
most civilised nations, as well as the most savage tribes, have 
satisfied this want in one way or another. Even Australians, 
whatever may have been said to the contrary, have their 
rudimentary cosmogony, which those who have taken some 
interest in the matter, have made them relate. 

In all cases, man has at first connected his cosmogonic 
conceptions with bis religious belief. Then among the most 
advanced ancient nations, independent spirits have sought 
for an explanation of nature in natural phenomena. But 
from want of precise knowledge, all their hypothetical con- 
ceptions have no fundamental value. 

With us also, the purely religious cosmogony has long 
been accepted as an article of faith. What was called 
science was confounded with dogma, itself relying upon 
interpretations of the Bible in harmony with the knowledge 
of the time. 

Science, properly so called, is entirely the creation of 
modern times. The rapidity, the grandeur of its develop- 
ments, fill one of the most magnificent pages of human 
history. Relying entirely upon experiment and observation, 



126 The Hitman Species. • 

it could not fail to contradict certain beliefs, which were 
drawn from a book written in an entirely different sense to 
its own, and explained by the aid of data which were incom- 
plete or false. Between the representatives of the past and 
those of the new era, the struggle was inevitable. It needed 
to be sharp, and it was so. It is now keener than ever. 

Circumstances of every kind have destroyed in many 
minds the old faith of our ancestors. Carried away by the 
general stream, many in the matter of religious belief, have 
arrived at absolute denial. The need of an explanation of 
the universe is still felt by these uneasy minds ; and since 
they have no belief in the Bible, they have turned their 
attention to science. 

The latter has already given them magnificent answers in 
astronomy and in geology. Before irrefutable facts, the 
later upholders of the ancient biblical interpretations have 
either been obliged to withdraw, or to be silent. No one 
believes in the immobility of the earth, in creation having 
taken place in six days of twenty-four hours each, or in the 
simultaneous appearance of all animals, or all plants. 
Astronomy has made known to us the genesis of worlds ; 
geology has taught us how continents and seas, valleys and 
mountains are formed, thus evolving some of the grandest 
results due to the action of second causes in the inorganic 
empire. 

There remains the organic empire, plants, animals, and 
man himself. Here curiosity is excited, and the want of 
explanation becomes more pressing, but unfortunately ob- 
servation and experiment are equally at fault. 

Some men, eminent in science and in the richness of their 
imaginations, have thought themselves able to do without it. 
Reviving the methods of the Greek philosophers, they have 
thought it possible to explain living nature and the entire 
universe, by connecting certain facts with conceptions, which 
are almost entirely intellectual. Once started in this path, 
they are readily elated at their own thoughts. When the 
positive knowledge which has been accumulated by the long 



Scientific Doctrines and Religious Dogmas. 127 

continued labours of their illustrious predecessors, has em- 
barrassed their speculations, they have at once, so to speak, 
thrown it overboard ; they have pushed to the utmost the 
more or less logical development of their a priori, and have 
nothing but irony and disdain for those who hesitate to 
follow them. 

These men could not but excite admiration. They spoke 
in the name of science alone ; by its means they replied 
to aspirations perfectly justifiable on such a topic ; they 
produced theories which charmed by their fulness and the 
apparent precision of their explanations. They were able 
consequently to influence even those men of science who 
had not gone to the bottom of things, and much more so the 
general public, who are always satisfied to believe what they 
are told. 

The nature of the resistance which they have met with 
from time to time was calculated to increase the splendour 
of their triumph. Men as imprudent as ill-judged have 
attacked them in the name of dogma. Scientific discovery 
has degenerated into controversy ; both parties have become 
excited, and in the two camps it has been considered neces- 
sary to deny all the statements of the enemy ; they have 
vied with each other in violence, and savants, who pretended 
to speak in the name of free thought, have not shown them- 
selves the less intolerant. 

I will only remind the one party of the trial of Galileo, 
and the other of the theories of Voltaire denying the exis- 
tence of fossils. 

Others have resisted the impulse of the time ; they have 
remained faithful to method, the mother of modern science ; 
they have carefully preserved their inheritance of solid and 
precise knowledge, acquired from past centuries. They can- 
not on that account be accused of acting from routine or be 
considered as retrograding. As warmly as the most ardent 
partisans of the so-called advanced theories, they have 
applauded all the progress, and have received with equal 
favour new ideas, on the condition of exposing them to 



128 The Human Species, 

experiment and observation. But when they meet with 
questions the solution of which is at present impossible, and 
will perhaps always be so, they have not hesitated to 
answer : — WE DO NOT KNOW ; — and when they find purely 
metaphysical theories are being imposed upon them, they 
have protested in the name of experiment and observation. 

I venture to say that I have always remained faithful to 
the ranks of this phalanx, to which the future distinctly 
belongs. For this reason, to those who question me upon 
the problem of our origin, I do not hesitate to answer in 
the name of science : — I DO NOT KNOW. 

I do not on that account anathematise those who consider 
they ought to act otherwise, nor do I greatly blame their 
boldness. The study of second causes has enabled man to 
explain scientifically the present constitution of the in- 
organic world ; and it is quite legitimate to attempt to 
account for the present state of the organic world by causes 
of the same nature ; perhaps success will one day crown our 
efforts, and should they for ever remain unrewarded, as they 
have hitherto done, they will still possess a certain utility. 
These efforts of the imagination provoke new research, make 
new openings, and thus render a service to real science in 
the world of facts, as well as in that of ideas. If Darwin 
had not been actuated by his preconceptions, he would pro- 
bably never have accomplished his excellent work upon the 
150 races of pigeons, nor developed his theory of the struggle 
for existence and natural selection, which accounts for so 
many facts. 

Unfortunately, from having forgotten the works of their 
predecessors, Darwin and his followers have drawn erroneous 
conclusions from these premises. They imagine they have 
given explanations when they have given none. This is 
what I have endeavoured to show. I have been obliged to 
resume the debate ; it is for the impartial and unprejudiced 
reader to decide between us. 



BOOK III. 

ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XII. 

AGE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. — PKESENT GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 

I. Without prejudging the future, we have been obliged to 
acknowledge that the problem of the specific origin of man 
cannot be solved, or even attempted, with the scientific data 
which we at present possess. This is not quite so much 
the case with certain questions which are naturally suggested 
to the mind by the preceding. 

"We know that our globe has passed through several geo- 
logical and palaeontological epochs ; that living beings have 
not appeared simultaneously, and that the present fauna 
and flora have been preceded by very different ones. It is 
natural to ask the question, when man began to inhabit the 
earth, and to endeavour to determine the moment of the 
appearance of this being, so similar to other beings in many 
respects, so exceptional in his most noble faculties, and 
superior to everything around him. 

This question of time should be stated precisely ; we must 
understand the sense which may be attributed to it. 

Let us observe, in the first place, that here we can have no 
dates properly so called. < They only exist in history. Now 
primitive mankind can have no history in the scientific sense 
of the word. Most great religions have endeavoured to 
fill up this gap. But my readers are already aware that I 



130 The Human Species. 

have refused all considerations drawn from such a source, 
and that I intend to bring forward here none but the results 
of experiment and observation. I shall then try how far 
back we can go with the aid of these guides alone, quoting 
in the first place a few historic dates as terms of comparison. 

II. The Greeks and Romans, with whom classical educa- 
tion too often terminates, do not take us very far. The 
former had much more ancient records than the latter, and 
yet the era of the Olympiads only brings us to the year 770 
before our era ; according to Hecateus of Miletus, it was in 
the ninth or tenth century before our era that the gods ceased 
to intermarry with mortals, and the Trojan war is regarded 
approximately as having taken place in the eleventh or twelfth 
century. Beyond this period, it is evident that we are led 
by Greece into mere mythology, or rather into those legen- 
dary times where truth and fable are confounded. 

The Aryan traditions go further. M. Vivien de Saint 
Martin, summing up the works of which he is so good a 
judge, refers the arrival of the Hindoos on the river of Cabul 
to about the sixteenth or eighteenth century before our era. 
These tribes were only an offshoot of the great emigration 
which the Zend Avesta takes back almost as far as the Bolor. 
We can, therefore, refer the latter to the twentieth or twenty- 
eighth century before our era. 

Jewish history, starting with Abraham, goes back almost 
to the same period (2296 years) ; the deluge of Noah, accord- 
ing to the estimation generally received, to the year 3308. 
Say about thirty centuries. 

In China, the Chou-King places the reign of Hoang-ti in 
the year 2698, and that of Jao in the year 2357 before our 
era. This would correspond almost to a century, with the 
date of the migration of Abraham. 

Egypt had no Chou-King, but her monuments are the 
most magnificent of books. Champollion has taught us how 
to read them, and we can decipher them page by page. 
Now Lepsius and Bunsen place the fifth dynasty about the 
fortieth century, and according to Mariette Bey, the lists of 



Age qf the Human Species. 131 

Manetho, upon the subject of which the eminent Egyptolo- 
gist makes formal reserves, go back to the year 5004 before 
our era. We should, then, be separated from the earliest 
historical times of Egypt by an interval of about seventy 
centuries. If, instead of counting by years, we count by 
the human life, which we will estimate at about twenty-five 
years, we find that we are only separated from these times, 
which constitute the extreme limit of past history, by 280 
generations. 

These numbers are undoubtedly interesting. They tend 
to modify some of the impressions which we have received in 
our childhood ; but they tell us nothing of the antiquity of 
the human race. At most, in showing us that at this period 
there existed people in the valley of the Nile sufficiently 
civilised to possess the art of writing, and to raise monuments 
worthy of our admiration, they refer the first appearance of 
man far beyond the limits which they reach themselves, 

III. The Egyptians themselves have, then, a past anterior 
to all history. With much greater reason is this the case 
with the Chinese, Hindoos, Greeks, and still more so with 
nations less well endowed, or accidentally retarded in their 
evolution. To plunge into this obscurity with the hope of 
finding in it any certain land-marks, and to discover facts of 
which even legends say nothing, would thirty years ago have 
appeared a senseless enterprise. It is, nevertheless, the work 
accomplished by one of the most recent of sciences, Pre- 
historic Archaeology. We should therefore regard the year 
1847 as a memorable date, when three Danish savants, a 
geologist, a zoologist, and an archaeologist, were charged by 
the Society of Northern Antiquaries to carry out the studies 
which have served as its foundation. By a study of the 
Kitchenmiddens and peat mosses of their country, Forcham- 
mer, Steenstrup and Worsaar have done for the history of 
man what De Buch, Elie de Beaumont, and Cuvier have done 
for the history of the globe. 

The Kitchenmiddens are essentially formed by the accu- 
mulation of shells strewn on the sea-shore, which sometimes 



132 The Htunan Species. 

attain considerable proportions. With the shells are found 
the remains of fish, and bones of birds and mammalia. Man 
alone could have formed this accumulation, and his presence, 
moreover, is revealed by the implements, tools, and weapons, 
which he once mislaid, and which are now found among the 
remains of his meals. They consist of stone, almost always 
rudely shaped. In some of these artificial hills, among the 
traces of a very rudimentary industry, we meet with other 
stone objects which betray workmanship of the most remark- 
able perfection. 

The Kitchenmiddens, then, reveal the existence of a 
population now forgotten, which at first lived in an entirely 
savage state, but afterwards acquired a certain amount of 
civilisation. From a chronological point of view, however, 
this information is still very imperfect. The mixture of 
implements, sometimes almost without form, and sometimes 
again showing wonderful workmanship, permits of various 
interpretations, which have in fact been given. 

It is different with the objects found in the peat-mosses, 
and especially in those which the Danes call slwvmoses, that 
is, forest mosses. These formations are found in hollows of 
irregular form which have been excavated in Quaternary 
clays, reaching at times a depth of thirty feet or more. The 
detailed study which Steenstrup especially has made of them 
led him to distinguish among them the central region or 
peat-moss, and the exterior region or forest region. 

The first is formed by the cavity itself. It is the peat- 
moss properly so called, formed by the la}~ers of peat which 
fill the cavity, and have been deposited subsequently to its 
formation. A. meagre vegetation grew upon the surface, 
which divides this mass of vegetable debris into distinct zones. 
They are, proceeding downwards : — 1st, certain trees, such 
as the birch, alder, and hazel, etc., mixed with heaths ; 2nd, 
small stunted, but sturdy pines (Pinus sylvestris), which 
had grown upon peat in which mosses of a high organisation, 
such as the hypnum, were found ; 3rd, compact, amorphous 
peat, the elements of which for a long time it was considered 



Present Geological Epochs. 133 

impossible to discover, but in which MM. Steenstrup and 
Nathorst discovered in 1872 undoubted remains of five species 
of plants now confined to the Arctic circle, such as, Salix 
herbacea, S. polaris, S. reticulata, Betula nana, Dry as octo- 
petala ; 4th, a bed of clay evidently resulting from material 
washed down by rain from the sides of the hollow, when the 
latter were still bare. 

The forest region occupies the sides themselves. The 
trees were there protected from the wind, and extending 
their roots into a fertile clay they attained a magnificent 
development. Now we at once meet with a very remarkable 
fact, the beech tree is not found in the skormoses. At the 
present day it is the essential constituent of the Danish 
forests ; it is the national tree, and the most ancient tradi- 
tions give no suspicion that it has ever been wanting in 
Denmark. In its place the peat-mosses contain at first 
nothing but oaks (Quercus robur sessilifolia) which dis- 
appeared from the country in prehistoric times, and is only 
found in a few places in Jutland. Then, as we descend 
deeper into the peat, the oaks give way to pines. In their 
turn the latter gain the ascendant, and occupy the lowest 
parts of the peat exclusively. 

Oaks and pines, when they fell from old age, accident, or 
human agency, generally fell towards the interior of the bog. 
Their interlaced branches supported and consolidated the 
peat, which was then in the best condition for preserving, as 
they fell, any solid substances which may have been dropped 
or thrown into the bog-. 

Man used to frequent the skovmoses, and it is well known 
that he cannot live in any place without losing a number of 
objects, even those upon which he sets most value. He lost 
in the bogs weapons, tools, and instruments of all kinds, and 
they all remain where they fell. The skovmoses have thus 
become a kind of chronologically stratified museum, where 
each generation has left its trace in the contemporaneous 
peat. We have only to explore it 'layer by layer to obtain 
many definite ideas about the predecessors of the present 



134 The Human Species. 

Danes, and to find in this prehistoric past relative dates or 
epochs. In this manner the Scandinavian savants have 
arrived at the idea of the Ages of Iron, Bronze, and Stone, 
which are now universally adopted. I shall not here follow 
the development which these fundamental ideas have re- 
ceived, nor the manner in which they have been applied to 
the Lake dwellings of Switzerland and elsewhere. I shall 
not insist further upon the different degrees of civilization . 
betrayed by the use of two metals and of polished or ground 
stone. I shall confine myself to the remark that in Denmark 
the Iron age entirely corresponds with that of the beech tree, 
while the Bronze age corresponds with the entire period of 
the oak, and the close of that to the pine. Lastly, the pine 
is the tree of the Stone age. 

The presence of objects formed by human industry proves 
the presence of man. Thanks to their irrefutable testimony, 
there is no difficulty in tracing him through the zones of the 
oak and the pine. The immense number of objects, which have 
been left by him in the peat period, points to the existence of 
a somewhat dense population. These objects, on the contrary, 
become very rare, and at the same time ruder, in the layer 
of amorphous peat. They were, for some time, even thought 
to be wanting altogether, till they were finally discovered by 
Steenstrup associated with the remains of the reindeer. 

Man, then, was living in Denmark when Arctic plants, 
such as Betula nana and Salise polaris grew at the bottom 
of the skovmoses ; he was accompanied by the reindeer, 
which completes the resemblance between the past state of 
that country and the present state of Lapland. Now we 
know that such a state of things could only have existed in 
Denmark in the latter part of the Quaternary epoch, when 
the ice, retreating from the south north w 7 ards, would still be 
far removed from its present limits. We can then affirm 
that man existed and lived in Europe at the very dawn of 
the present geological epoch. 

This fact is again proved by the discovery of a human 
station, made by M. Fraas, at Schussenried in Wurtemberg. 



Age of the Hitman Species. 135 

* 

Here man, whose presence is attested by worked flints of 
various forms, by weapons and instruments of bone, by 
phalanges of reindeer made into whistles, lived with the 
reindeer, the glutton,' and the polar fox, and gathered mosses 
which are now confined to Northern Europe, such as 
Hypnum sarmentosum, fluitans, and aduncum. As in 
Denmark, he seems to have followed the glaciers step by 
step, as the melting of the latter opened out new lands to 
his activity. 

IV. Without claiming such accuracy for the historic dates, 
or even such an approximation as that derived from the 
Aryan traditions on the most ancient monuments of Egypt, 
is it possible to estimate the number of years which have 
elapsed since the times we have just been discussing? 

This question has often attracted the attention of geologists 
and anthropologists, and several attempts have been made to 
solve it. But the results are still far from being satisfactory. 
They are none the less interesting, and calculated, to a 
certain extent, to encourage fresh research. The method is 
good ; it has only been hitherto wanting in sufficiently 
precise dates, and we may hope that they will be sooner or 
later forthcoming 1 . 

This method is easily comprehended. For example, let us 
admit that the peat has a regular growth in the skovmoses, 
and suppose, in addition, that a coin, recognised as belonging 
to the twelfth century, has been found at a depth of 1'50 
metres (4 '9 feet) ; we shall conclude that the layer of peat 
has only required about 600 years for its. formation. The 
age of a bronze hatchet found at greater depth, 8 metres 
(2fv24 feet), will be given by the proportion l m, 50 : 6 : : 8 m : x. 
The hatchet would then be 3,200 years old, and would date 
from the fourteenth century before our era. 

Many natural phenomena are available for calculations of 
this kind. Such are the alluvium of a riyer, the silting up 
of a lake, the erosion of a hill or plateau, etc. Jut in order 
that the results of these calculations may have a real value, 
the phenomenon which serves as the basis, and the calcula- 
7 



136 The Human Species. 

tions resulting from the data must satisfy three conditions 
which have been very clearly stated by M. Forel. 

1. The phenomenon should be perfectly constant and 
regular, -which is never the case. At least, it ought to be 
possible to regard its action as giving an annual mean or 
constant centennial result, by means of compensations which 
are produced naturally. 

2. When super-imposed strata are used as a means of 
estimation, the age of the strata serving as a term of com- 
parison, ought to be rigorously determined ; the nature of 
the objects compared should leave no doubt. 

3. We ought to be certain that the objects found in any 
stratum really belong to it, that they have not been displaced 
by any reformation or by their mere weight. (Peat.) 

Should even one only of these conditions be unfulfilled, 
the calculation is necessarily erroneous. Now, hitherto, we 
cannot be absolutely certain that the conditions laid down by 
M. Forel are satisfied. Nevertheless, I repeat, it is interest- 
ing to know what results have been obtained by these 
attempts at prehistoric chronology. 

It would seem, at first sight, that the skovmoses must be 
useful for researches of this kind. It is not so. Steenstrup, 
an excellent judge of these matters, after having estimated 
at forty centuries the time necessary for the formation of the 
peat accumulated in these bogs, declares that it might be 
twice, or even four times as much. 

In reality, the uncertainty as to the results obtained from 
the growth of peat, is very much greater than the Danish 
savant admits. In adding to the data collected by Brandt, 
those kindly presented to me by my colleague, M. Besal, I 
find that for a period of 443 years the mean annual growth 
of peat is 0032 metre (1-26 inch). Bat this mean is the 
result of numbers whose extremes are 0065 metre (2*56 inch) 
and 00065 metre (026 inch). That is to say, that the 
means found by different observers for the annual growth of 
peat, vary from one to ten. 

The calculations of MM. Gillieron and Troyon, resting upon 



Present Geological Epochs. 137 

the deposition of silt, which has caused the retreat of the 
Lakes of Bierme and Neuchatel, have but little connection 
with the present subject. Both have sought to determine 
the age of the Lake dwellings, which belong, probably, to a 
much later period than the one which we are now endeavour- 
ing to determine. We may, however, notice the numbers, 
6,000 years and 3,300 years, found by these observers. 

The chronological results derived from the littoral accumu- 
lation of silt, of which I have just spoken, exhibit chances 
for error which Vogt has rightly pointed out. For some 
time the results have been thought more worthy of confi- 
dence which were based upon the researches made by M. 
Morlot upon the conical accumulation of silt deposited by 
the Tiniere. This cone, which was cut through by the rail- 
way for a distance of 133 m# (436 feet), and to a depth 
f 7-7111. (25 feet), exhibited in the midst of the mass 
of gravel three undisturbed soils, the highest of which con- 
tained Roman instruments and coins ; the second, pottery 
of the Bronze age ; and the third, split bones, charcoal, and 
different objects referable to the close of the Stone age. 
Fixing the commencement of the Roman period in Switzer- 
land at the first century of our era, and the end of it at the 
year 563, and making some corrections which cannot be de- 
tailed here, M. Morlot has considered himself able to propose 
the following numbers as approximate dates : — 

Age of layer of Koman period . . . 10 to 15 centuries. 

Age of layer of Bronze period . . . . 29 to 42 centuries. 

Age of layer of Stone period . . . . 47 to 70 centuries. 

Age of whole cone . . . . . . 74 to 100 centuries. 

These numbers are not high. The number given by M. 
Morlot as the age of the Stone period in Switzerland, leads 
us back to an antiquity which does not exceed that given 
by the Egyptian monuments ; and it is impossible to avoid 
being struck with the differences of civilization exhibited by 
the two countries. Nevertheless, this fact cannot constitute 
a reason for doubting the results of the Swiss savant. It is 
well known that man during the same time has not every- 



138 The Human Species. 

where equally advanced in civilization, and that the Eskimas 
are still in the Neolithic period. 

But other criticisms have been brought forward against M. 
Morlot, the result of which is that the numbers furnished by 
the cone of the Tiniere cannot be accepted as giving a real 
approximation to the date which we are seeking for. 

V. M. Forel, who has taken an active part in this discus- 
siofl, has tried to solve the problem in an indirect way. In- 
stead of seeking directly for the age of a prehistoric fact, he 
has proposed to have recourse to the rule of false position, 
which allows the determination either of a maximum which 
the numbers cannot possibly exceed, or a minimum below 
which they cannot fall. He has applied this plan, which is 
as correct as it is ingenious, to the Lake of Geneva. 

It is well known that the waters of the Rhone, especially 
during the floods caused by the melting of the snow, enter 
the lake in a very turbid condition, and flow on remarkably 
clear. The mud thus deposited evidently tends to fill up the 
lake, and has already silted up a part of the great depression 
which was filled by the ice of the Quaternary epoch. M. 
Forel has first determined the annual volume of the deposit. 
He has then calculated the volume of the present lake, basing 
his calculations on the soundings made by La Beche. He 
has thus been enabled to calculate the time necessary for the 
sediment of the Rhone to fill up the entire lake. Then, ad- 
mitting that the part of the original lake already filled up 
had a mean depth equal to that of the present lake, he has 
compared the surface of the alluvial deposits already formed 
with the surface of the lake itself. The proportion is almost 
one to three. These deposits have then been formed in a 
third of the time necessary to fill up the present lake. 
Now their formation commenced immediately after the re- 
treat of the glaciers. The elate thus obtained is, then, 
that of the modern geological epoch. 

Such is the method by which M. Forel arrives at the 
number of 100 ; 000 years. This is a maximum which is 
probably much exaggerated. M. Forel shows this himself 



Age of the Human Species. 139 

very clearly. He lias always taken the lowest numbers 
for the estimation of the increase of alluvium ; he has con- 
sidered on the whole year ninety days only as contributing to 
this increase ; he has only included the Rhone in this estima- 
tion, and taken no account of other rivers, streams, etc. ; he 
has not taken into consideration inundations, extraordinary 
falls of rain, landslips, etc. ; he has assumed the floods of the 
Rhone have always resembled the present floods, while they 
must originally have been much more considerable, and have 
carried away much more material from mountain slopes but 
recently relieved from their covering of ice ; he has said 
nothing of the gravel and sand which must necessarily be 
carried along the bed of a rapid stream like the Rhone, etc. 

M. Forel's result must therefore undergo serious reduc- 
tion before it approximates to the truth. Without attempt- 
ing a precise statement, we can (at least) admit with almost 
absolute certainty that the present geological epoch com- 
menced less than 100,000 years ago. 

On the other hand, M. Arcelin has sought for a solution of 
the same problem in the deposits of the Saone. The present 
river flows in a channel hollowed out in the alluvium of the 
Saone of Quaternary times, the banks of which have been 
raised by the sediment deposited during floods. The two 
deposits are very easily distinguished. The homogeneity of 
the modern alluvium indicates, moreover, a remarkably 
regular phenomenon. The banks of the Saone at different 
points form more or less abrupt hills which constitute so 
many natural geological sections. The erosions of the river 
have laid bare objects easily recognised as belonging to 
the Roman period, the Bronze age, and the Neolithic age. 
These objects are found at a constant height, showing that 
they are in situ. The hills of the Saone, then, constitute 
one of those means of estimating prehistoric chronology, 
which are so valuable to us. MM. Arcelin and De Ferry 
have attempted first to determine the age of the different 
layers. The numbers so obtained show a certain amount 
of discordance, undoubted lv due to the fact that M. de 



140 The Human Species. 

Ferry has based his calculations upon a single section, 
while those of M. Arcelin represent the mean taken from 
33 points. The latter has, however, afterwards had re- 
course to the method of M. Forel, and to the rule of false 
position. But instead of seeking a maximum, he has en- 
deavoured to determine a minimum. This calculation 
gives the following results : — 

Age of Eoman layer . 1,500 years | Age of Neolithic layer . 3,000 years 
Age of Bronze layer . . 2.250 years I Age of Quaternary clay 6,750 years 

This represents a very moderate antiquity, and corresponds 
almost entirely with the dates of Manetho. But the minimum 
of M. Arcelin appears to me to be too low, and the error 
greater than in the case of the maximum of M. Forel. I 
shall only point out the most important of the causes which 
have led to this result. The calculations of the author are 
based upon the hypothesis of the equality of the floods, and 
of the alluvial deposit in the period between the present and 
the Roman period, and in times previous to that. He thus 
confounds the epochs when the basin of the Saone was left to 
Nature alone, with other epochs when the same basin was 
stripped of its forests, cleared and cultivated as it is at pre- 
sent. Now everyone knows how much more powerful the 
action of atmospheric agents, of rain in particular, are upon 
cultivated land than upon uncultivated. The upper layers, 
which served as the basis for the calculations of M. Arcelin, 
have necessarily diminished to a considerable extent the 
final result, since they must have been formed much more 
rapidly than a great part of the lower layers. 

I shall say, then, of the minimum of M. Arcelin what I 
have said of the maximum of M. Forel. It leaves us the 
certainty that the present geological period goes back much 
further than 7 — 8000 years. 

VI. What corrections ought the extreme numbers which 
I have just quoted to undergo in order to approximate to 
the truth ? It is still impossible to say. But the path 
which should be followed in order to diminish the space 



Present Geological Epochs, 141 

which separates them is henceforth clear. The alluvium of 
the Saone has always appeared to me to present conditions 
of uncertainty which it would be difficult to overcome, and 
the best means of determining the age of the present period 
by prehistoric chronology, appears to me to be the Lake of 
Geneva. 

In order to correct the first results obtained by M. Forel, 
it would be necessary to take into account all the circum- 
stances pointed out above, and several others also. It would 
be especially necessary, at different seasons of the year, in 
dr}^ and wet weather, to gauge the smallest rivulets and 
ravines all round the lake, to measure the amount of mud 
their waters contain, and the amount of gravel and sand they 
carry down with it. This task is beyond the power of a 
single man; it would require the formation of an Association 
for this end. The problem would be worth the trouble, and 
the Swiss savants, so justly proud of their beautiful lake, 
might easily make arrangements to obtain its solution. 

Such as they are, the works of MM. Arcelin and Forel 
lead to some important conclusions. The total age of our 
globe, used till lately to be restricted to a little more than 
6,000 years ; the alluvial deposits of the Saone show that the 
present geological epoch alone surpasses this by several cen- 
turies. On the other hand, under the influence of Darwinian 
prejudices, men have begun to handle time with a strange 
laxity, and it has been affirmed that millions of years 
separate us from glacial times. The deposits of silt in the 
Lake of Geneva show that these times terminated less than 
100,000 years ago. As M. Forel well says, " This does not 
yet constitute historic chronology ; it is, nevertheless, a little 
more than simple geological chronology ; " and we see once 
more experience and observation doing justice to theoretical 
conceptions. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AGE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. — PAST GEOLOGICAL EPOCHS. 

I. The skovmoses and the remains at Schussenried have 
shown that man existed in Europe at the close of the Glacial 
Epoch. But did he live through this epoch ? Did he 
precede it ? Has he, therefore, been contemporary with 
vegetable and animal species, which have long been con- 
sidered as fossils ? We know that we can with certainty 
reply in the affirmative to these questions. We know 
also that the proof of this great fact, one of the grandest 
scientific conquests of modern times, dates, so to speak, from 
yesterday. 

This demonstration rests on proofs which are now so well 
known that the enumeration of them will be sufficient. It 
is evident that human bones, buried beneath an undisturbed 
layer of soil, prove the existence of man at the time when 
the layer was. formed. It is no less clear that flints worked 
bv human hands and made into hatchets, knives, etc., bones 
of animals made into harpoons and arrow-heads, are so many 
irrefutable testimonies of the existence of the workers. 
Lastly, when human bones are found associated with bones 
of animals in the same undisturbed layers, it is again evident 
that man and these animal species have been contem- 
poraneous. 

Many facts included in these three categories were proved 
in the earlier years, and during the course of the last century. 
Since 1700, excavations made by the order of Duke Eberhard 
Louis* de Wurtemberg, at Canstadt, near Stuttgard, brought 
to light a great number of bones of animals, among which was 
found a human cranium. The nature of this precious relic 



Age of the Human Species. % 143 

was, however, only recognised by Jaeger in 1835. About 
the same time an Englishman, Kemp, found in London itself, 
side by side with the teeth of elephants, a stone hatchet 
similar to those of Saint Acheul. Some time after Esper in 
Germany, and John Frere in England, discovered more or 
less analogous facts. But none of them were able to 
recognise their significance, for geology was quite in its 
infancy, and palaeontology not yet in existence. 

II. It was not till 1823 that Amy Boue gave Cuvier some 
human bones which he had found in the loess of the Rhine, 
near Lahr, in the Duchy of Baden. Boue' regarded these 
bones as fossils. Cuvier refused to admit this conclusion. 
He has often been reproached with this, but the reproach is 
unjust. Cuvier had too often seen pretended fossil men 
change either into mastodons or salamanders, or even into 
simple contorted blocks of sandstone, not to be on his guard, 
and, in presence of a fact hitherto unique, he thought it 
wiser to admit a disturbance which would have carried into 
the loess bones of much later date than that of the formation 
of this layer. 

But Cuvier, whatever may have been said of him, never 
denied the possibility of the discovery of fossil men. He 
has, on the contrary, formally admitted the existence of our 
species as anterior to the latest revolutions of the globe. 
" Man," he says, " may have inhabited some country of 
small extent from which he repeopled the earth after these 
terrible events." We see that the prais'es and reproaches 
which have been addressed to our great naturalist on ac- 
count of an opinion which he never held, are equally unde- 
served. 

The reserve, perhaps exaggerated, which Cuvier imj3osed 
upon himself, and the confidence which was placed in him, 
weighed heavily upon science by impeding the comprehen- 
sion of the value of observations made by Tournal (1828- 
1829) in L'Aude, by Christol (1829) in Le Gard ; by 
Schmerling (1833) in Belgium; by Joly (1835) in Lozere; 
by Marcel de Serres (1839), in L'Aude, and by Lund (1844) in 



144 The Hitman Species. 

Brazil. In 1845 almost all the savants, properly so called, 
shared the opinion so well stated by Desnoyers. Without 
regarding the existence of fossil man as impossible, they did 
not think that the discovery had as yet been made. 

It is to the persevering efforts of a distinguished archaeo- 
logist, Boucher de Perthes, that we owe the proof of a fact 
so long denied, and now universally admitted. Under the 
influence of certain philosophical ideas, little calculated to 
procure him followers, he had admitted d priori the ex- 
istence of human beings anterior to the present man, from 
whom they must have differed considerably. He hoped to 
find either their remains themselves, or the products of their 
industry, in the upper alluvial deposits. Watching either 
himself or through his agents the excavation of the gravel 
pits near Abbeville, he collected there a number of flints, 
more or less rudely worked, but bearing the unmistakable 
impress of the hand of man. Some of his publications (1847) 
brought him visitors, who in their turn carried on the search. 
Soon after, M. Begollot (1855) and M. Gaudry (1856) obtained 
from the gravel of Saint Acheul hatchets similar to those of 
Abbeville, and declared themselves convinced. The English 
savants, Falconer, Prestwich, and Lyell, after having visited 
the collection of Boucher de Perthes, did the same, and had 
many imitators. 

III. In spite of the discoveries which were multiplied in 
caverns and gravel-pits, even in the neighbourhood of Paris, 
the same objections were brought against the believers in 
fossil man which Cuvier had opposed to Amy Boue. The 
juxtaposition of the remains of extinct animals and human 
bones, or articles of human workmanship, were attributed to 
a reformation effected by water. The high authority of M. 
de Bramont lent new force to this argument. He compared 
the alluvium of the neighbourhood of Abbeville to his 
terrains des pentes, formed, he said, by storms of an ex- 
ceptional violence, which only happened once in a thousand 
years, and which heap up together materials derived from 
different beds. As for the objects discovered in caverns they 



Past Geological Epochs. 145 

inspired still less confidence than the others, on account of 
the ease with which the bed might be undermined by eddies, 
which would tend to deposit in the heart of a subjacent layer 
objects derived from the upper layers, without destroying 
either the one or the other. 

Many men of high intellect still hesitated, until M. Lartetr 
published his remarkable work upon the grotto of Aurignac 
(1861). Here doubt was impossible. This grotto, or rather 
rock-shelter, was closed at the time of its discovery by a slab 
of stone brought from a distance ; M. Lartet discovered, 
either in the interior or at the entrance, the bones of eight or 
nine species of animals which are essentially characteristic of 
quaternary deposits. In his memoir he gives details of all 
the remains. Some of these animals had evidently been 
eaten upon the spot, their bones, partly carbonized, still bore 
the trace of fire, the charcoal and ashes of which were dis- 
covered ; those of a young tichorhine rhinoceros showed marks 
made by flint implements, and their spongy extremities had 
been gnawed by carnivora; the species of the latter was 
shown by his excrement, which was recognized as that of the 
hyena spelcea. 

The grotto or rock-shelter of Aurignac is excavated in a 
small mountainous group, a spur of the plateau of Lanemezan, 
which the Pyrenean drift has never reached. It is, therefore, 
free from the objections drawn from the intervention of 
aqueous currents. Thus the facts made known by M. Lartet 
were generally accepted at once in their fullest signification. 
These facts show that man lived in the midst of a quater- 
nary fauna, which he used as food, including the rhinoceros, 
and was followed by the hyena of this epoch, who finished 
the remains of his meals. The coexistence of man with 
these fossil species was proved. 

A few ill-judged attacks were still made by savants, who 
did not accept the testimony of these facts, among others 
that of the discovery of a human jaw made by Boucher de 
Perthes. But the discoveries became so numerous that the 
last among them was soon reduced to silence, and had to 



146 7 he Human- Species. 

submit to the mention of fossil man without raising the 
slightest protest. 

IV. It would be too tedious and, indeed, useless to 
enumerate here all these discoveries. I will only mention 
some of the most striking ones associated with the names of 
Lartet and Christy, his enthusiastic colleague. At Les 
Eyzies, these indefatigable investigators discovered a stalag- 
mitic layer formed of a veritable breccia, which contained 
worked flints, ashes, charcoal, and bones of different qua- 
ternary animals. Large slabs of this breccia now figure in 
many collections. In this same grotto they found a vertebra 
of a young reindeer pierced by a flint which had broken in 
the bone, thus causing the death of the animal. Finally, in 
1864, M. Lartet had the pleasure of being present at the 
discovery of a plate of mammoth ivory, upon which a repre- 
sentation of the animal itself had been carved with a sharp 
flint by an artist of La Madeleine. In this drawing are found 
the characteristic traits of the mammoth, as they are known 
to us from the remains of the animal which are at times 
found preserved, with its thick fur and long hair, in the ice 
of Siberia. 

For man to be able to draw the portrait of any animal 
species, he must have been contemporaneous with it. Now 
proofs of this nature have rapidly become more numerous 
and striking. In l'Ariege M. Garrigou found a representation 
of the cave bear traced on a pebble. M. de Vibraye extracted 
from the grotto of Laugerie Basse a sketch of a fight between 
reindeer remarkably well drawn upon a piece of schist. The 
same animal has been discovered represented in sculpture in 
the same rock-shelter, and again in the rock-shelter of 
Montastruc, where M. Peccadeau de l'lsle found his wonder- 
ful dagger-handles. 

I need not speak here of the weapons, tools, and instru- 
ments of every kind, from the simple knife to barbed arrow- 
heads, and harpoons, to laurel-leaf shaped lance-heads, and 
daggers toothed and grooved, which equal the finest specimens 
found in Denmark. I will only remark that all these objects 



Age of the Human Species. 147 

prove the existence of man, and that we now count by the 
thousand articles made by him during the geological period 
preceding our own. 

Without being nearly so abundant, the remains of man 
himself have been discovered in every part of the quaternary 
formation. Although several European states have con- 
tributed towards this mass of discoveries, by far the greater 
number occurred in France and Belgium. 

I cannot here enter into details, some of which will be 
more advantageously discussed in another part of the book. 
I will only mention the cave of Cro-Magnon, which was 
discovered by the railway engineers in 1860, not far from 
the station of Les Eyzies, and which has given us the type of 
one of the best characterized fossil races. Nor can I pass 
over in silence the successful and laborious researches made 
by M. Martin from 1867 to 1873 in the quarries near Paris, 
the results of which enabled M. Hamy to fix the succession 
of types in our immediate neighbourhood. Lastly, I would 
allude to the investigations of M. Dupont in the valley of 
the Lesse. Commenced in 1864, and continued during seven 
years with an unequalled activity, they have presented to 
the Museum at Brussels about 80,000 worked flints, 40,000 
bones of animals, now all named, the crania of Furfooz, and 
twenty-one jaws, including the now celebrated jaiv of Naulette. 

It is not only in Europe that the existence of fossil man 
has been proved. Even in 1844 Lund had announced that 
he had found in certain caverns in Brazil human bones 
associated with remains of extinct animals. He afterwards 
withdrew his statement, doubtless owing to the distrust with 
which every announcement of this kind was received. But 
his observations, which, unfortunately, were never published 
in detail, were probably correct. In 1867 M. W. Blake 
announced to the Congress of Paris that in the auriferous 
deposits of California, and especially near the village of 
Sonora, weapons, instruments, and even stone ornaments 
were frequently found associated with the bones of the 
mammoth and the mastodon. Dr. Snell, who lives in this 



148 The Human Species, 

locality, possesses a large and rich collection of them. Dr. 
Wilson published some facts of the same nature in 1865. 

V. It became necessary, in order to prevent our being lost 
amidst these riches of every description, to distribute them 
in a methodical manner, and arrange them in order of time. 
The universal preponderance of weapons, tools, sculpture, 
drawings, etc., has led arch geologists to propose different 
classifications essentially founded upon the difference of the 
types presented by these articles, and upon the material from 
which they were made. The classification which M. de Mor- 
tillet has applied to the Museum of St. Germain is of this 
kind. But such classifications, though very convenient for 
the arrangement of a public collection, have the inconve- 
nience of being rather artificial. The naturalist and the 
anthropologist ought to give the preference to palseontolo- 
gical or geological data. 

Lartet preferred the former. He connected the division 
of quaternary times with the predominance and extinction of 
the great mammalia. The cave-bear, which was the first to 
disappear, he employed to mark the most ancient period; 
the mammoth and the tichorhine rhinoceros, which survived 
it, characterised the second; the reindeer and the aurochs 
have served to mark the third and fourth. 

This classification has the inconvenience of being purely 
local, since the disappearance of quaternary species did not 
take place everywhere at the same time, and was not general. 
In reality the age of the reindeer still continues in Lapland, 
and that of the aurochs is prolonged, a little artificially it 
is true, in the forests of Lithuania. But Lartet's method 
connects human groups with animal types ; it characterises 
the epochs by an event palaeontologically important ; it 
preserves the relation between the succession of periods and 
biological events ; it offers, therefore, serious advantages if 
taken for what it is. This was very clearly understood by 
the eminent author of the theory; he has only applied it to 
France. 

Since M. Lartet made his splendid investigations, fresh 



Past Geological Epochs. 149 

facts have come to light, and, as it often happens, distinctions, 
which at first were apparently most pronounced, have now 
been partly effaced. Therefore M. Dupont has proposed to 
reduce to two the four ages of Lartet, which is perhaps 
excessive even for Belgium. M. Hamy, again, has admitted 
three ages as corresponding to the mean and new river levels 
of M. Belgrand. This division of quaternary times has the 
advantage of being connected with geological phenomena ; 
it at least partly loses the too exclusively local character, and 
it ought for this reason to be preferred. 

Let us, nevertheless, consider the subject for a moment from 
Lartet's point of view, which permits of an interesting com- 
parison. We have seen in Denmark the succession of three 
vegetable species ; the beech, the oak, and the pine bring us 
to the commencement of the present modern epoch. In 
France the successive disappearance of four animal species, 
the cave-bear, mammoth, reindeer, and aurochs, which at 
first were contemporaneous on our soil, characterises so many 
epochs which embrace the whole quaternary period. Man 
has been contemporaneous with them all ; he made use of 
their flesh for food, and has left representations of them in 
sculpture and drawings. 

VI. Can we go further and find traces of man even in 
tertiary times? Falconer, the celebrated English palaeon- 
tologist, prematurely lost to science, did not hesitate to 
reply in the affirmative. But he only expected to find 
tertiary man in India, and M. Desnoyers has discovered him 
in France. 

It was in 1863, in the gravel-pit of Saint-Prest, near 
Chartres, that M. Desnoyers himself found a tibia of rhino- 
ceros. bearing marks of incision and grooves similar to those 
which had been so often noticed in the bones of bears and 
reindeer eaten by quaternary man. A careful comparison 
and numerous facts of the same nature, shown in different 
collections, authorised him to announce that man might be 
traced beyond the glacial epoch, and had lived in pliocene 
times. 



150 The Hitman Species. 

But M. Desnoyers only brought forward proofs of a single 
kind, and such as are not appreciated at their full value until 
we are used to them. Thus his work was at first received 
with a certain amount of distrust. He was asked to produce, 
if not pliocene man himself, at least some objects of his 
industry, and, in particular, the weapons which would enable 
him to attack, and the knives with which he could cut up 
the elephant and rhinoceros, or the great deer, whose bones 
all bear the marks of more or less deep incision which he 
attributes to man. M. l'Abbe Bourgeois soon replied to 
these demands, and in the presence of the worked flints 
which he placed before competent judges, all doubt dis- 
appeared. 

Unfortunately, the gravel of Saint-Prest is considered by a 
sufficient number of geologists to belong rather to quaternary 
deposits, which are more recent than undoubted tertiary 
formations. It ought probably to be placed in the period of 
transition which separates two distinct epochs. Perhaps it 
is contemporaneous with the deposit of the Victoria cave in 
Yorkshire, from which Tiddeman extracted a human fibula, 
and which this naturalist regarded as having been formed a 
little before the great glacial cold. In short, the discoveries 
of MM. Desnoyers and Tiddeman take back the existence of 
man to the confines of the tertiary period. 

The discoveries in Italy take us still further. On different 
occasions, and since 1863, some Italian savants thought that 
they had discovered in undoubted pliocene deposits traces of 
human industiy, and even human bones. These results 
were, however, for different reasons successively doubted and 
rejected by the most competent judges. 

But M. Capellini has just discovered, in 1876, clearer proofs 
of man's existence in pliocene times in the clay deposits of 
Monte Aperto, near Sienne, and in two other places. The 
eminent professor of Bologna has found in these localities, 
the age of which is not contested, bones of the balcenotus 
bearing numerous deep incisions, which it seems to me 
could only have been produced by the action of a cutting 



Age of the Human Species. 151 

instrument. In some cases the bone has been broken off 
upon one of the faces of incision, whilst the other is smooth 
md sharply defined. Judging from woodcuts and casts, it is 
impossible to avoid admitting that the cuts have been made 
upon fresh bones. These incisions differ entirely from those 
found upon the bones of halitherium found in the miocene 
falunian strata of Pouance. I have always thought it impos- 
sible to attribute the latter to man, as decidedly as I think 
those which we are now discussing ought to be attributed to 
his agency. The existence of pliocene man in Tuscany is, 
then, in my opinion, an acquired scientific fact. Neverthe- 
less, I should admit that this conclusion is not yet unani- 
mously accepted, and that it is disputed by M. Magitot, among 
others, who relies upon his own experience. 

VII. The researches of M. l'Abbe' Bourgeois take us still 
further back. This practised and persevering observer has 
discovered in the department of Loir-et-Cher, in the Com- 
mune of Thenay, flints, the shape of which he thinks can 
only be attributed to man. Now geologists are unanimous 
in considering these deposits as miocene, belonging to the 
mean tertiary age. 

But the flints of Thenay, generally of small size, are 
almost all very roughly shaped, and many palaeontologists 
and archaeologists have considered the fractures to be due to 
nothing more than accidental blows. In 1872, at the Congress 
of Brussels, the question was submitted to a commission of 
the most competent men of Germany, England, France, 
Belgium, and Italy, and the judges disagreed. Some ac- 
cepted and some rejected all the flints exhibited by M. l'Abbe 
Bourgeois. Some considered that a small number onlv could 
be attributed to human industry. Others, again, thought it 
right to reserve their judgment and to wait for fresh facts. 

I joined the ranks of the latter. But since then fresh 
specimens discovered by M. l'Abbe Bourgeois have removed 
my last doubts. A small knife or scraper, among others, 
which shows a fine regular finish, can, in my opinion, only 
have been shaped by man. Nevertheless, I do not blame 



152 The Human Species. 

those of my colleagues who deny or still doubt. In such a 
matter there is no very great urgency, and doubtless the 
existence of miocene man will be proved, as that of glacial 
and pliocene man has been — by facts. 

VIII. Thus, man was most certainly in existence during 
the quaternary epoch and during the transition age to which 
the gravels of Saint-Prest and the deposits of the Victoria 
cave belong. He has, in all probabilit} r , seen miocene times, 
and consequently the entire pliocene epoch. Are there 
any reasons for believing that his traces will be found fur- 
ther back still ? Is the date of his appearance necessarily 
connected with any epoch ? For an answer to these ques- 
tions I only see a single order of facts to which we can 
apply. 

We know that, as far as his body is concerned, man is a 
mammal, and nothing more. The conditions of existence 
which are sufficient for these animals ought to have been 
sufficient for him also ; where they lived, he could live. He 
may then have been contemporaneous with the earliest 
mammalia, and go back as far as the secondary period. 

Palaeontologists of high merit shrink from this proposi- 
tion. They do not admit even the possibility of the existence 
of man in miocene times. All the mammalian fauna of this 
period have, they say, disappeared ; how should man alone 
have resisted against causes which were sufficiently powerful 
to cause a complete renewal of all the beings with which he 
was most nearly connected ? 

I recognise the force of the objection ; but I also take into 
account human intelligence, which they seem to forget. It 
is evidently owing to this intelligence that the man of Saint- 
Prest, of the Victoria cave, and of Monte Aperto has been 
able to survive two great geological epochs. He protected 
himself against cold by fire, and so survived till the return 
of a more genial temperature. Is it not possible, therefore, 
to imagine that man of an earlier period should have found 
in his industry the necessary resources for struggling 
against the conditions which the transition from the later 



Past Geological Epochs. 153 

secondary times to the earlier tertiary must have imposed 
upon him. 

In fact, the most careful judges acknowledge that man has 
seen the accomplishments of one of the great changes on the 
surface of the globe. He has lived in one of the geological 
epochs to which he was but lately thought to be a complete 
stranger; he has been contemporary with species of mammalia 
which have not even seen the commencement of the present 
epoch. There is then nothing impossible in the idea that he 
should have survived other species of the same class, or have 
witnessed other geological revolutions, or have appeared 
upon the globe with the first representatives of the type to 
which he belongs by his organisation. 

But this is a question to be proved by facts. Before we 
can even suppose it to be so, we must wait for information 
from observation. 



BOOK IV. 

ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AGASSIZ'S THEORY. — CENTRES OF CREATION. 

I. With the exception of Australasia, with which we are 
but very imperfectly acquainted, and of some islands and 
deserts which we need not take into account, all the regions 
visited by man since the commencement of the era of modern 
discoveries have proved to be more or less inhabited. In 
wandering over the globe of which he took possession, the 
European has met with man everywhere, and quaternary 
palaeontology reveals him to us upon the most distant shores 
of the two continents. 

Are all these different populations indigenous ? Is man a 
native of the countries where he is represented by history, 
and where travellers have met with him ? or has he rather 
invaded by degrees the surface of the globe, starting from a 
certain number of points, or from a single one ? In other 
words, has man, who is now cosmopolitan, originally been 
more or less localised I 

These questions have been answered alternately in the 
different senses which they admit of. Unfortunately these 
solutions have too often been influenced by considerations 
entirely foreign to science. It has been thought necessary 
to adopt either the one or the other in the name of dogma 
or philosophy, and this question has been confounded with 



Agassiz s Theory. 155 

that of monogenism and polygenism, without seeing that 
upon this particular point the two doctrines must lead 
anyone who remains faithful to the data of science to the 
same result. Science has already been shown to be our only 
possible guide ; let us examine her teaching on this subject. 

II. The doctrine which admits the multiplicity of the 
geographical origins of man, has been more frequently as- 
serted, than sustained by more or less serious arguments. 
Agassiz is the only naturalist who has developed and defined 
it, by supporting it with general data. We must, therefore, 
first examine these data. A very short account will explain 
the reasons why I must, with regret, oppose one of the men 
whose learning and character I have always held in the highest 
estimation. 

There are singular points of resemblance, and no less 
striking contrasts between Agassiz and the most extravagant 
disciples of Darwin. The illustrious author of the Essay 
on Classification is as exclusive a morphologist as the latter; 
neither in his opinion nor in theirs, does the idea of filia- 
tion form any connection with that of species ; he declares, 
as they do, that the questions of crossing, of constant or 
limited fertility, have no real interest. We are justified in 
attributing these opinions, so strange in such an eminent 
zoologist as Agassiz, to the nature of his early works. It is 
well known that he commenced his career with his cele- 
brated researches upon fossil fishes. We have already 
remarked upon the influence which is almost inevitably 
exercised by fossils, where form alone has to be considered, 
where nothing calls attention to the genealogical connection 
of beings, and where we meet with neither parents nor 
offspring. 

But while Darwinists admit the perpetual instability of 
specific forms and their transmutation, the illustrious pro- 
fessor of Cambridge believes in their absolute immutability. 
Upon this fundamental point he is in exact opposition to 
Darwin. In 18-10, whilst proclaiming the unity of the 
human species, he admits that the diversity which it presents 



156 The Human Species. 

is the result of original physical differences. This is really 
nothing more than a mitigated polygenism ; and, like every 
polygenistic doctrine, compels its author to place man in 
contradiction to general laws. In 1845, Agassiz himself ac- 
cepted this consequence in a memoir upon the geographical 
distribution of animals and man. He attributed the diver- 
sities of both to the same causes. "But," he adds, "whilst 
in every zoological province animals are of different species, 
man, in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms one 
and the same species." The following year he declared his 
belief in "an indefinite number of primordial races of men 
created separately." 

Agassiz has collected and developed all his theories in a 
memoir inserted at the beginning of the great polygenistic 
work entitled Types of Mankind. It is clear that Nott and 
Gliddon, the authors of this work, were perfectly aware of 
the real meaning of a doctrine which proclaims the specific 
unity of man, while at the same time admitting that the 
human races have been created separately with all their 
distinctive characters. We, also, must not be deceived, but 
.recognise Agassiz as a true polygenist. 

I shall, therefore, be obliged to make all those objections 
to the theory of the eminent naturalist which have already 
been stated. Moreover, the singular association which he 
has endeavoured to establish between the unity of species 
and the original characterisation of races, has led him into 
contradictions and consequences which are peculiar to him, 
and which it would scarcely be possible to pass by in silence. 

Agassiz, like the greater number of polygenists, gives no 
intimation of what he means by the word race. Yet he 
makes use of it incessantly and declares, for example, that 
he is ready to show that " the differences existing between 
human races are of the same nature as those which separate 

families, genera, and species of apes or other animals " 

"The chimpanzee and the gorilla," he adds, "do not differ 
from each other more than Mandingoes from the Negroes of 
Guinea ; there is less difference between either of them and 



Agassiz s Theory. 157 

the orang, than there is between the Malay or the White 
and the Negro." 

Must not the logical consequence of such positive language 
be, that man forms a zoological family comprising several 
genera and many species, precisely similar to the family of 
anthropoid apes ? But no ; Agassiz devotes a new paragraph 
to declaring that this opinion, which he has expressed so 
clearly, agrees entirely with the theory of unity, and in no 
way brings human fraternity into question. In one of his 
first memoirs upon questions of this nature, he declared that 
man is an exceptional being, and we shall see how far he 
pushes this unavoidable consequence of his theories. 

In a letter addressed to the same authors, and printed in 
the Indigenous Races of the Earth, Agassiz returns to the 
same subject. He here insists upon considerations which, 
in his first work, he had merely alluded to, and which we are 
truly astonished to receive from his pen. In order to show 
that the same local causes have acted upon man and animals, 
he draws attention to the resemblance of colour, which, 
according to him, exists between the complexion of the 
Malay and the colour of the hair of the Orang ; from the 
same point of view he compares the Negrittoes and Telingas 
with the gibbons. 

If it were possible to consider seriously this comparison 
between the skin of a human group, and the colour of the 
hair of an animal, we should have no lack of arguments to 
bring against the author. I shall only remind my readers 
that black gibbons are found in Sumatra, which is one of 
those islands where men are considered by Agassiz to 
resemble the orang in colour. 

Carried away by the heat of controversy with those 
naturalists who admit the unity of the geographical origin 
of man, Agassiz goes much further than this. He con- 
siders the various languages as being of primitive origin as 
well as all other characters. Men, he asserts, were created 
by nations, each of which appeared upon the globe with 
its own language. He draws a comparison between these 



158 The Human Species. 

languages and the voices of animals; he laughs at philologists 
for their belief in the discovery of any connection between 
one language and another. In his opinion, there is just as 
much relation between one human language and another, 
as between, the growling of different species of bears, the 
mewing of the cats of the two continents, the quacking of 
ducks, or the song of thrushes, who all pour forth their gay 
and harmonious notes, each in its dialect, which is neither 
inherited nor derived from another. 

Philologists will most certainly reject the law as laid down 
by Agassiz. But I must also protest against the comparison 
admitted by this illustrious naturalist. If I attribute a 
language to animals, I do not forget how rudimentary it is. 
I recollect that no animal has ever learnt the language of 
another. I know too well the distance there is between 
animal intersections and articulate speech, and I am as well 
aware as anyone that to use such an instrument, so as to 
produce from it true languages, can only be accomplished by 
the superior intelligence of man. 

Agassiz, when he had arrived at this point, must have 
felt that he had lost himself, and that, in trying to harmonise 
the idea of a single human species with that of several races 
of distinct origin, he was entering an endless labyrinth. His 
last work betrays the signs of this embarrassment only too 
clearly. It is probably in the hope of escaping from it that 
the author has finally even denied the existence of species. 
After having again rejected the criterion drawn from crossing 
and degrees of fertility, he adds : " With it disappears in its 
turn the pretended reality of species as opposed to the mode 
of existence of genera, families, orders, classes and branches. 
Reality of existence is, in fact, possessed by individuals alone." 
Thus, from adhering solely to morphology, from a disregard 
of the physical side of the question, from having allowed 
themselves to be guided by a logic which is only founded 
upon incomplete data, Agassiz and Darwin have arrived at 
a similar result. Both have disregarded this great fact, 
intelligible to common sense, demonstrated by science, and 



Agassiz s Theory. 159 

which governs everything in zoology, as it does in botany, 
the division, namely, of organised beings into elementary and 
fundamental groups which propagate in space and time. But 
Darwin, starting from the phenomena of variations which 
are presented by these beings, considers species as only races. 
Agassiz, entirely preoccupied with the phenomena of fixity, 
finally considers individuals only as existing in living 
nature. Both forget that the great Buffon passed suc- 
cessively to both these extremes only to return again to the 
doctrine which includes and explains all facts, and which 
may be summed up in these words : distinction of race and 
species. 

III. In spite of these dogmatic assertions, when it comes 
to application of any kind whatever, Agassiz, like Lamarck 
in former times, and Darwin in our own day, is obliged to 
use the word species in the sense in which it is employed by 
so many others. In the memoir, from which I have already 
quoted, animal and vegetable species are constantly being 
discussed. Their geographical distribution serves as a founda- 
tion to the theory of human origins. The author admits that 
they could not have arisen upon one and the same point of 
the globe ; that the centres of creation were numerous, and 
that the species diverging from these centres give to the 
actual flora and fauna all their characteristic features. 

Up to this point Agassiz has only accepted the doctrine of 
centres of creation, a doctrine entirely French in origin, 
having been formulated by Desmoulins and developed by 
M. Edwards. 

What is due to Agassiz is the reproduction, in the name 
of science, of a theory at first proposed by La Peyrere in the 
name of theology : giving to man the whole world as his 
original home: the admission that the human races originated 
in the same places as the groups of animal and vegetable 
species, and the connection of one of these races with each 
centre of creation ; the multiplication of the number of 
human creations to such a degree as to profess that " man 
was created by nations/' endowed from \\\q fjrst with all 
8 



160 The Hitman Species. 

their distinctive characters, and each speaking its own 
special language. 

There is, at first sight, no absurdity in the idea itself, 
nothing at all contradictory to anything which we have as 
yet met with. We have seen above that physiology leads to 
the conclusion that " human groups are to all appearance 
descended from one primitive pair." It goes no further than 
that. Anyone who confines himself to inferences drawn 
from this order of facts might, therefore, accept the theory of 
Agassiz as, it is true, a very gratuitous hypothesis, but con- 
venient in order to account for the distribution and actual 
diversity of human types. 

This is no longer the case when we turn to another branch 
of the natural sciences, zoological and botanical geography. 
We then can easily prove that the theories of Agassiz tend to 
make an exception of man, to place him at variance with the 
general laws of the geographical distribution of all other 
organised beings, and, consequently, that they are false. 

IV. I fully agree with the views of Agassiz, as far as 
centres of creation, or rather centres of appearance are 
concerned. 

All who confine themselves to the data of observation and 
experiment will see at once that all animal and vegetable 
species could not have originated upon any one spot of the 
globe. The former shows us, in various regions, different 
types and species, living naturally in countries which present 
almost precisely the same conditions of existence. The latter 
teaches us that we can transport the greater number of 
species from one region to another, and that they will 
prosper there, if the conditions of existence are the same ; 
that, on the contrary, arctic and tropical species cannot, even 
temporarily, be submitted to the action of the same conditions; 
that neither can withstand the action of a temperate climate. 
It is impossible with all these facts to avoid the conclusion 
that plants and animals had several points of appearance. 

But if I accept this doctrine as the only one reconcilable 
with facts, it is upon the condition of adopting it entirely, 



Agassiz' s Theory. 161 

and as developed by studies upon the geographical distribu- 
tion of all living beings. Now, works of this kind are 
numerous at the present time. 

For all phanerogamous plants we have the work of M. 
Ad. de Candolle, which has been a standard work ever since 
its appearance. 

Animals have not yet had their de Candolle. The great 
work of M. Alphonse Edwards will partly fill up this gap 
for the more southern regions of the globe. In the mean- 
time, important investigations have been made in some of 
the principal classes. BufTon, by his admirable researches 
upon the geography of mammals, opened the way, in which 
he has been followed by the two GeofYroy Saint-Hilaires, 
Fr. Cuvier, and Andrew Murray ; Dumeril and Bibron have 
■ studied reptiles from the same point of view ; Frabricius, 
Latreille, Macley, Spence, Kirby, and Lacordaire have done 
the same for insects ; M. Milne Edwards has worked out the 
distribution of the Crustacea ; I have endeavoured to do as 
much for the annelids. Finally, a great number of works 
bearing upon the lower groups have long been known to 
science, and Agassiz himself has largely contributed to in- 
crease our knowledge in this direction. 

A certain number of general facts stand out from this 
mass of research, which we call laivs. If the theory of 
Agassiz is true, it ought to agree with these laws. Now the 
disagreement is apparent from the outset. 

Let us prove, in the first place, that this theory includes 
two very distinct ideas : that of the original cosmopolitanism 
of the human species; and, secondly, that of a geographical 
connection between the human race and the animal or vesre- 
table groups observed in a common centre. Let us examine 
the truth and error contained in this last statement. 

Agassiz holds that the influence of the centre of appearance 
is general and absolute. It extends to all the products of 
the soil as well as to those of fresh and salt waters. A 
country is just as much characterised by its plants and 
animals as by its human beings. In his opinion, an essen- 



1 62 The Human Species, 

tially local force seems to have produced all beings, or at 
least to have imprinted upon them a common mark. 

This generalisation was inevitable. Any one who wishes 
to attach a human race to each centre of appearance is com- 
pelled to localise in each one of them the original cause of 
all the animal and vegetable forms which are indigenous in 
it. For all living beings geographical coincidence must be 
absolute. 

Now there is generally no such coincidence. From the 
waters of a river to the banks which enclose it, the contrast 
may be striking. This is exactly what was shown by the dis- 
coveries of Agassiz himself in the ichthyology of the Amazon. 
To anyone who accepts the results published by the illus- 
trious traveller, it is evident that this fauna may be divided 
into groups much more narrowly confined than those of 
terrestrial fauna. The same fact may be observed upon 
the shores of two seas separated by even a very narrow 
strip of land. The terrestrial fauna and flora are the same 
throughout the whole extent of the isthmus of Suez, whilst 
M. Edwards has not found a single species of Crustacea 
common to both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and 
the study of annelids has led me to the same result. 

Moreover, the same region may be the centre of appear- 
ance for one class of animals, but by no means for another. 
Australia, for example, is one of the most characteristic 
centres for mammals, and stands alone from this point of 
view among the surrounding countries. With respect to 
insects Australia agrees, on the contrary, with New Zealand, 
New Caledonia and the neighbouring islands. I have bor- 
rowed this last fact from Lacordaire. It has the more value 
since this entomologist has multiplied the centres of appear- 
ance to a much greater extent than Agassiz, and has, there- 
fore, made their characterisation easier. 

Thus the coincidence admitted by Agassiz, far from extend- 
ing to all the organised beings of a region, does not even exist 
in certain cases between the different classes of animals alone. 

V. Agassiz divides the entire surface of the globe into nine 



Agassis s Theory. 163 

great regions or kingdoms. I cannot here give in detail the 
numerous criticisms to which the fixed limits and characteri- 
sation of these centres are open. I shall confine myself to a 
few short remarks upon each. 

1. Polynesian Kingdom. We shall see presently that it 
is impossible to regard Polynesia as a centre of human 
appearance. This region has been entirely peopled by 
migration from the Indian Archipelago, the history of which 
has been partly preserved. The first kingdom of Agassiz 
must be struck out as far as we are concerned ; it is an 
exclusively animal and vegetable centre. Agassiz, moreover, 
though he supports it in the text and upon the map, does 
not assign it a place in the illustrated table, in which he 
sums up his ideas. 

2. Australian Kingdom. Agassiz includes New Guinea 
in this kingdom. He thus destroys the homogeneity of the 
mammalogical fauna. At the same time he unites the 
several human races of Australia with the Negrittoes and 
Papuans. This alone destroys all unity of type. 

3. Malay or Indian Kingdom. This kingdom com- 
prises India, the Malay Archipelago, and the Andaman 
Islands. Now, anterior to the Aryan conquest, Yellows and 
Blacks lived in India. The latter are still found in a pure 
state in the peninsula of Malacca, and in the Andaman Is- 
lands ; Malaysia presents a perfect mixture of most different 
races, from the White to the Negro. The Malays, properly 
so-called, are much rather a population levelled by the action 
of Islamism, than a race in the true sense of the word ; they 
present in a high degree the characters of intercrossing. All 
these facts protest against the idea of making these regions 
a centre of human appearance. 

4. Hottentot Fauna. Agassiz abandons the expression 
kingdom in speaking of the south of Africa, without giving 
any reason for the change. Whatever the cause may be, 
this is one of the least unfavourable regions for the applica- 
tion of his theory. From a geological or botanical point of 
view, South Africa constitutes a veritable centre. The 



164 The Hitman Species. 

Bosjesman and the Hottentot might be considered as the 
characteristic human type. But the Negroes of Delagoa and 
the Kaffirs still protest against this partial coincidence. 

5. African Kingdom. This region is considered by 
Agassiz to comprise the rest of Africa, with the exception of 
the shores of the Mediterranean. He adds Madagascar and 
the southern half of the Arabian peninsula. Now, from a 
mammalogical point of view, Madagascar forms a little centre 
of itself, whilst the human population is very mixed. The 
Hovas are very slightly modified Malays, and the languages 
of the Sacalaves themselves indicate relations with the 
Malayo-Polynesians. As to the continental portion of the 
kingdom, it is enough to remark that it includes Negroes, 
Abyssinians, Arabs, etc. History, as well as the present 
state of things, protests against the connection made in this 
case by the author. 

6. European Kingdom. This division Agassiz considers 
as comprising the entire circumference of the Mediterranean, 
Persia and Beloochistan. Consequently it embraces very 
different fauna and flora; it mixes up Aryan, Semitic 
and Chamitic populations, and takes no account of history. 
Agassiz himself recognises this fact, and declares that he has 
only taken into consideration pre-historic times. Since the 
Quaternary epoch, however, France alone has supported 
tribes which were tall and dolichocephalic, and others which 
were short and brachycephalic. Finally, although Agassiz 
includes the Persians with the Europeans, he leaves out the 
Hindoos who are ethnologically connected with them, and 
places them in an entirely different kingdom. 

7. Mongolian or Asiatic Kingdom. This kingdom en- 
closes all the central portion of Asia, beginning at the 
Bolor and the Himalayas, and extending as far as Japan. 
The Mongol is taken as the human type of this vast extent 
of country. But Agassiz forgets the Aryans of the Bolor, 
the white Jutchis, the Japanese of the same type, the Ainos, 
etc. He unites, therefore, people which belong to at least 
two extreme types of mankind. 



Agassiz s Theory. 165 

8. American Kingdom. Agassiz makes but one king- 
dom of the whole of America, whilst all zoologists and 
botanists are agreed in dividing it into at least two great 
and distinctly characterised centres. He adopts the opinion 
of Morton, who only admits one human race in America, 
with the exception of the Esquimaux. Now, since the 
publication of d'Orbigny's Homme Americain, it is no 
longer possible to believe in this uniformity. The numerous 
investigations which have been undertaken upon this ques- 
tion have, moreover, proved still more strongly the multi- 
plicity of races admitted by this traveller. Again, if the 
human races of America are compared with those of the old 
world, we shall find, with a few exceptions, a very close 
connection with Asia, especially in certain populations of 
Central America: if we compare the fauna and flora, the 
connection is, on the contrary, closer in North America. 
These facts are in direct opposition with the theory of 
Agassiz. 

9. Arctic Kingdom. This latter kingdom deserves a 
little more attention than the others. It comprises all the 
northern regions of the two continents. The southern limit 
is somewhat arbitrarily fixed by Agassiz at the .zone of 
forests. In no region of the world does man meet with such 
identical conditions of existence, for all are governed by cold. 
It would seem, therefore, to be better able than any other to 
justify the author's theory, and yet facts agree but very 
slightly with it. 

Agassiz characterises this kingdom by the existence of 
one plant and six species of animals, five mammals and one 
bird. The plant is the Iceland lichen (cenomyce rangiferina). 
Now, this lichen is so little characteristic of polar regions 
that it is found in many parts of France, and even in the 
neighbourhood of Paris at Fontainebleau. M. Decaisne 
believes that our hares and rabbits live upon it in winter, as 
the reindeer do in Lapland. Further, the observations 
recently made in Greenland by the German Polar Exj^e- 
dition, show that in this country, which, of all countries in 



1 66 The Human Species. 

the Arctic Kingdom, should most readily adapt itself to the 
conceptions of Agassiz, and which is inhabited by pure- 
blooded Esquimaux, possesses scarcely one vegetable species 
which can be said to be peculiar to it, and that a great 
number of them are found in the Alps, and upon the summits 
of the Yosges. It is a result of the return of heat after the 
glacial epoch, the species which resisted it having emigrated 
in altitude as well as in latitude. 

In animal species, the white bear and the walrus are 
really polar. The same may be said of the Greenland seal 
considered as a species. But as a type we meet with it 
everywhere; as a genus it inhabits all the seas of Europe. 
The I'eindeer inhabited France in the Quaternary epoch ; it 
was living in Germany in Caesar's time ; it descended yearly 
to the Caspian Sea during the lifetime of Pallas. The true 
whale used to visit our coast before it was driven away by 
man. Finally, at this day, the eider duck builds yearly in 
Denmark, ten to fifteen degrees south of the Polar circle. 
Thus, in the six species mentioned by Agassiz as peculiar to 
his Arctic Kingdom, three at least belong equally to his 
European Kingdom. 

Agassiz was certainly more capable than anyone else of 
nicely characterising the region in question, if it had been 
possible to do so. He failed, because there is in reality no 
such thing as a true Arctic fauna. The cause of this lies in 
the extension of more southern fauna, which become im- 
poverished as they advanced northwards, but change their 
character very slightly. In reality, this kingdom is broken 
up into independent provinces, or rather, is connected with 
regions situated more to the south, and consequently better 
divided. The Polar region, says Lacordaire, in speaking of 
insects, is characterised less by the speciality of its products 
than by their scarcity. All these facts, again, are the con- 
sequence of the peopling of the Arctic regions after the 
glacial epoch. 

It would seem that man at least might present at the 
pole the homogeneity supposed by the theory. It is not so, 



Agassiz s Theory. 167 

however, whatever may Jbe the assertions of Agassiz upon 
this subject. " A peculiar race of man," he says, "live there, 
known in America by the name of Esquimaux, elsewhere by 
that of Lapps, Samoyedes or Tchouktchis. . . The uniformity 
of their characters throughout the whole extent of the Arctic 
seas unites them in a striking manner with the fauna with 
which they are so closely connected." 

There are, in these words of Agassiz, grave ethnological 
and anthropological errors. The uniformity of characters of 
which he speaks does not exist at all. It will suffice to 
remind my readers that the Lapps are one of the most 
brachycephalic, and the Esquimaux one of the most dolicho- 
cephalic races with which we are acquainted. In fact, these 
two races are so entirely distinct that no anthropologist has 
ever dreamt of establishing a connection between them. 

As to the Samoyedes and Tchouktchis, they have not 
always inhabited the icy lands where we now meet with 
them. The former have still a recollection of having come 
from the south, and M. de Tchiatchef has discovered the 
original stock upon the confines of China. The latter settled 
at Behring's Straits but a short time ago to free themselves 
from Russian conquest, against which they had bravely 
struggled. They subjugated and absorbed the Yukagires, 
their predecessors. They differ, moreover, equally from 
Esquimaux and Lapps. 

Thus, in the Arctic Kingdom, where all the most favour- 
able conditions for the display of any truth which the ideas 
of Agassiz may possess are brought together, everything 
protests against these ideas. In spite of his vast knowledge, 
he could not characterise it zoologically in a precise manner ; 
the special fauna which he admits does not exist ; the 
identity of populations which he proclaimed disappears under 
the slightest examination. 

Finally, the theory which attaches a human race to every 
centre of appearance as a local product of that centre, ought 
to be rejected by anyone who sets the least value upon the 
results of observation. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PROGRESSIVE LOCALISATION OF ORGANISED BEINGS. — CENTRES 
OF APPEARANCE. — ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF MAN. 

I. An eminent man may draw incorrect conclusions from 
the existence of centres of appearance without their existence 
being any the less real. Unconnected with animal or vege- 
table centres, the human races might have their own ; man 
might have come into existence wherever we meet with him. 
But, before we accept this original cosmopolitanism, we must 
assure ourselves that it subjects man to general laws. Now 
we shall see that this hypothesis is, on the contrary, at 
variance with all general facts presented by plants as well as 
animals. 

II. Let us first prove that no animal or vegetable species 
inhabits, as man does, almost the entire globe. 

The assertion of Ad. de Candolle could not be more 
precise as far as plants are concerned. " No phanerogamous 
plant," he says, " is distributed over the entire surface of the 
earth. There are only eighteen whose area extends to half 
the globe. No tree or shrub figures among these plants, 
which are so widely distributed." This latter remark belongs 
to an order of considerations which we shall meet with 
again. 

Being unable to enter into an examination of all the facts 
which are offered by the various classes of the Animal 
Kingdom from this point of view, I shall confine myself to 
a few details upon birds and mammals. 

We should expect to find the former presenting very ex- 
tensive areas of habitation by reason of their mode of loco- 
motion. It is, in fact, among them that we find some of the 



Progressive .Localisation of Organised Beings. 169 

species which most deserve the epithet of cosmopolitan. 
They do not, however, equal man in this respect. 

The stock-dove, the parent stock of our domestic pigeon, 
extends from the south of Norway to Madeira and Abyssinia, 
from the Shetland Islands to Borneo and Japan ; but it does 
not reach as far as either the equator or the polar circle ; and 
it is wanting both in America and Polynesia. 

The fulvous vulture is found in all the temperate regions 
of the old world, crosses the equator in Africa and descends 
as far as the Cape. But we do not meet with it either in our 
polar regions, in America or in Polynesia. 

The peregrine falcon has perhaps of all animals the widest 
area. It is found in America, as also in all the warm or 
temperate regions of the old world. It is supposed to exist 
in Australia, but we do not meet with it either in Polynesia 
or in the polar regions. 

Among mammals, whales, on account of their immense 
powers of locomotion and the continuity of seas, would seem 
to be adapted to true cosmopolitanism. This, however, is not 
the case. They are almost all confined within relatively very 
limited areas, and rarely pass beyond their customary boun- 
daries. Commodore Maury regarded the equatorial sea as 
forming an invincible obstacle to their passage from one 
hemisphere to the other. Two exceptions have, however, 
been observed to this rule. A rorqual (Megaptera longi- 
mana) and a Sibaldius laticeps are said to have crossed 
this barrier, and to have passed from our seas to those of 
the Cape and of Java. These exceptions might easily be 
explained by various accidental circumstances. Supposing 
however we were to accept them as testifying an exceptional 
relative cosmopolitanism, we still have the fact that they 
have never been met with in the Pacific Ocean. 

With the exception of whales, we shall find nothing at all 
resembling cosmopolitanism. Setting aside the whole of 
Oceania, we only find, as common to both the Old and the 
New World, two or three ruminants, perhaps a bear, a fox 
and a wolf. All these species are, moreover, more or less 



. \ 

170 The Hitman Species. \ 

\ 
polar, and are wanting in tlie central regions \ of the two 
worlds. Finally, there is not one species of cheiroptera or 
quadrumana which is indigenous both in America and the 
Old World. 

Beyond those species which man has disseminated by 
making them follow his migrations, animals and plants 
evidently occupy their natural area, wherein lies the centre 
from which they have spread. We see that even after this 
dispersion none of them have acquired an area of habitation 
which can be compared to that of man. 

The admission that the human species appeared in every 
place in which it is found, attributing to it an original cos- 
mopolitanism, would make it a solitary exception in contra- 
diction to the facts presented by all other species. An 
hypothesis which leads to such a conclusion should be 
rejected as irreconcilable with the results of observation. If 
man is now to be found everywhere, it is owing to his intel- 
ligence and industry. 

III. This conclusion is forced even upon polygenists them- 
selves ; unless, indeed, they would reject, as inapplicable to 
man, the laws of zoological and botanical geography. 

In fact, to whatever extent they may have multiplied their 
human species, they have been obliged, upon even the 
slightest study of natural history, to unite them into a single 
genus. Now, all that has just been said of species applies 
equally to genera. The area of habitation is doubtless in- 
creased, and, for example, some genera of cetaceans, as 
dolphins and rorquals, are found in all seas ; and amongst 
terrestrial mammals, some genera of ruminants and carni- 
vora inhabit, in a greater or less degree, both the Old and 
the New World. But they are all absent in the greater part 
of Oceania. 

Moreover, the higher the types, the fewer is the number of 
these genera of widely extended areas. Cheiroptera, which 
are not provided with a nasal membrane, have some genera 
common to both the Old and the New World. This is no 
longer the case in cheiroptera, in which the nose is provided 



Progressive Localisation of Organised Beings. 171 

with a membrane. There is not a single genus among them, 
any more than among quadrumana, which inhabits both 
America and the Old World. 

Consequently, polygenists must admit that the species of 
which their human genus is composed could not have come 
into existence in every place where man is now found, unless 
they wish to make a striking exception of this human 
genus. 

IV. Should we wish to regard the human races as forming 
a family composed of several genera, or even as an order 
comprising several families, the same difficulties would 
present themselves. 

Setting aside the marsupials and edentata, to which we 
shall return, it is true that the great normal orders of terres- 
trial mammals, the ruminants, rodents, insectivora, and car- 
nivora are almost as cosmopolitan as man. But this is no 
longer the case with the cheiroptera, not one of which passes 
the polar circle. As to the quadrumana, it is well-known 
that they are wanting in Europe, with the -exception of the 
Rock of Gibraltar, in North America and in the greater part 
of Asia and Oceania. Thus it appears that, even in the 
extreme hypothesis which I have here indicated, it would 
not be in the animal types which present the greatest resem- 
blance to man, but among the carnivora or ruminants that 
we should be forced to seek for geographical analogies in 
favour of the pretended cosmopolitanism of the human 
order. 

V. This limitation of the areas of habitation of animals, 
which is evidently related to their degree of elevation in the 
scale of beings, is a general fact which we also meet with in 
plants. On this point Ad. de Candolle speaks as follows : — 
" The mean area of species is smaller according as the class 
to which they belong has a more complete, a more highly 
developed, or, in other words, a more perfect organisation." 

The progressive localisation of organised beings, increas- 
ing in degree as they become more perfect, is, then, a general 
law. Physiology will readily account for this fact. 



1 72 The Human Species. \ 

The perfection of organisms is the result of\ division of 
labour, which demands the multiplication of functional ap- 
paratus. As the anatomical instruments become more 
numerous and special, the functions do the same. From 
this cause alone the conditions of harmony between the 
living being and the conditions of life which surround it 
become more and more definite. Consequently, the animal 
or the plant only finds its really favourable conditions in a 
constantly diminishing area. Beyond these limits the con- 
ditions of life change, the struggle for existence becomes 
more hazardous, and the spread of the species, genus, family, 
or even order is arrested. Man alone, armed against the 
conditions of life by his intelligence and industry, is capable 
of overcoming conditions of existence which would be an 
impassable barrier to his material organisation. 

The law of progressive localisation is in direct opposition 
to the doctrine of the original cosmopolitanism of the human 
species. In putting it aside, polygenists, properly so called, 
might draw attention to the diffusion of the genera of 
dolphins and rorquals; polygenistic monogenists of the 
school of Agassiz might argue from the facts mentioned 
above in connection with the genera of megaptera and 
sibaldius ; they might both say : The general lav; of localisa- 
tion offers two exceptions ; why should not man form a 
third \ 

The analogy, it is clear, is fundamentally wrong. Dolphins, 
rorquals and sibaldius belong to the lowest order of mam- 
mals ; man, even if his body alone is considered, belongs 
incontestably to the highest order. Unless we make him a 
solitary exception, it is to the laws of the superior groups 
that he should be subject, and not to those of the inferior. 

Thus, we are so far justified in affirming that man could 
not have been originally cosmopolitan. But we can go 
further. 

VI. Without having come into existence in every place 
where we now meet with him, man may have had several 
centres of appearance. Let us examine this latter question. 



Progressive localisation of Organised Beings. 173 

The laws of progressive localisation and the characterisation 
of centres enable 11s both to put the question and to solve it. 

Let us re-examine from this point of view the animal 
groups, setting aside all inferior groups and confining our 
attention to anthropoid apes. In this family, which most 
closely resembles man in its organisation, there are degrees 
also. The law of progressive localisation applies to this 
limited group equally with the entire kingdom. 

We meet with the entire family in Asia, in the peninsula 
of Malacca, in Assam to 26° N. Lat., in Sumatra, Java, 
Borneo and in the Philippine Islands ; in Eastern Africa 
from 10° S. to 15° N. Lat. The gibbon genus, however, 
which is the lowest, is the only one which occupies the whole 
of Asia. The orang is confined to Borneo and Sumatra. In 
Africa the chimpanzee extends almost from the Zaire to 
Senegal; the gorilla has only been found on the Gaboon, and 
perhaps in Ashantee. Were he to occupy all the space 
which is still left blank upon that part of our maps by 
travellers, his area of habitation would even then be very 
limited. Thus, the higher the anthropoid type, the more 
limited the area of habitation. 

If we consider the material organism alone, the human 
type is incontestably superior to that of the orang or gorilla. 
He must then have been originally localised just as much 
as these animal types. It will perhaps be objected that the 
great apes are gradually disappearing, and that the few 
survivors do no more than show that they once existed in 
greater numbers. This would be an entirely gratuitous 
hypothesis having no foundation in facts, and we shall at 
least be permitted to reply, that the gorilla and the orang 
might very well have continued to exist in those places 
where the chimpanzee and gibbon are still living. Now, what 
are the areas occupied by the latter compared with the 
human area ? 

VII. I have, as yet, neglected exceptional types, such as 
the marsupials, the edentata, the makis, etc. ; I did not wish 
to argue from aberrant forms ; I confined myself to demon- 



174 The Human Species. 

strating the laivs in action in species of a so-called normal 
organisation. Aberrant types have, however, a very high 
value, and furnish us with further instruction. 

These types almost always characterise either the great 
centres of appearance, or the secondary centres or geo- 
graphical regions. Not to mention mammals, I must remind 
my readers that Australia has its marsupials ; South Aus- 
tralia, the ornithorynchus ; polar America, the musk-ox ; 
central America, the edentata ; Africa, the giraffe ; Asia, the 
yak ; the Cape, the gnu ; Madagascar, the makis and aye- 
aye ; "the Gaboon, the gorilla, etc. 

Man, also, is evidently an exceptional or aberrant type 
among mammals. He, alone, is constructed for a vertical 
position; he, alone, has true hands and feet; he, alone, 
exhibits the highest degree of cerebral development, and 
possesses that superiority of intelligence which makes him 
master of all around him. 

To allow that the human type, though the most perfect of 
all types, the exceptional genus in the midst of all others, 
has come into existence in several centres of appearance 
without characterising any, would be to make him a solitary 
exception. 

However strong may be our polygenistic tendencies, and 
however many species we may admit, we cannot help ac- 
knowledging that the original localisation of the human 
genus in a single centre of appearance and the characterisa- 
tion of this centre by him are the logical consequence of all 
the facts attested by zoological geography. 

With still greater reason the monogenists will consider the 
privileged species which predominates over all others as one 
of those special types which characterise the centre, or the 
region in which they have appeared, as the ornithorynchus, 
the aye-aye, and the gnu characterise South Australia, 
Madagascar and the Cape. 

Finally, the laws of zoological geography lead us to consider 
the human species as unmistakably characteristic of a single 
centre of appearance. Moreover, they justify us in con- 



Centres of Appearance, 1 75 

eluding that this centre cannot have been of greater extent 
than that of the gorilla and the orang. 

VIII. Is it possible to go still further and to endeavour to 
determine the geographical position of the human centre of 
appearance ? I cannot here enter into the details of this 
problem. I shall confine myself to determining its meaning, 
and to indicating the probable solutions of it from the data 
of science of the present time. 

I must observe, in the first place, that in considering an 
animal or vegetable species, even those whose area is most 
circumscribed, no one thinks of trying to discover the precise 
spot upon which it may have first appeared. There is 
always something very vague in such a determination and 
it is necessarily approximative. It is still more difficult 
when the species in question is of universal distribution. 
Within these limits we are justified in at least forming 
conjectures which, as such, have a certain amount of pro- 
bability. 

The question presents very different aspects according as 
we confine ourselves to the present or take into consideration 
the geological antiquity of man. Nevertheless, the facts are 
of the same order and seem to indicate two extremes. The 
truth lies, perhaps, between the two. 

We know that in Asia there is a vast region bounded on 
the south and south-west by the Himalayas, on the west by 
the Bolor mountains, on the north-west by the Ala-Tau, on 
the north by the Altai range and its offshoots, on the east 
by the Kingkhan, on the south and south-east by the Felina 
and Kuen-Loun. Judging from the present state of things, 
this great central region might be regarded as having con- 
tained the cradle of the human species. 

In fact, the three fundamental types of all the human 
races are represented in the populations grouped round this 
region. The black races are the furthest removed from it, 
but have, nevertheless, marine stations, where we find them 
either pure or as mixed races, from the Kioussiou to the 
Andaman Islands. Upon the continent they have inter- 



176 The Hitman Species. 

mixed with almost every inferior caste and cla^s of the two 
peninsulas of the Ganges ; they are still found pure in both, 
ascend as high as Nepaul, and extend west as far as the 
Persian Gulf and Lake Zareh, according to Elphinstone. 

The yellow race, either pure or in places mixed with white 
elements, seems to be the only one which occupies the space 
in question ; it peoples all the north, east, south-east, and 
west. In the south it is more mixed, but forms, neverthe- 
less, an important element in the population. 

The white race, from its allophylian representatives, seems 
to have disputed the central area itself with the yellow race. 
In early times, we find the Yu-tchi and the Ou-soun to the 
north of the Hoang-ho ; and in the present day cases of 
white populations have been observed in Little Thibet and 
in Eastern Thibet. The Miao-Tse occupy the mountain 
region of China ; the Siaputh are proof against all attack in 
the gorges of the Bolor. Upon the confines of the area we 
meet with the A'inos and the Japanese of high caste, the 
Tinguianes of the Phillippine Islands ; in the south with the 
Hindoos. In the south-west and west the white element, 
either pure or mixed, reigns supreme. 

No other region of the globe presents a similar union of 
extreme human types distributed round a common centre. 
This fact, alone is sufficient to suggest to the mind of the 
naturalist the conjecture which I have expressed above ; but 
we may appeal to other considerations. 

One of the most important is drawn from philology. The 
three fundamental forms of human language are found in the 
same countries and under similar relations. In the centre, 
and south-east of our area, the monosyllabic languages are 
represented by those of China, Cochinchina, Si am and Thibet. 
As agglutinative languages, we find in the north-east and 
north-west the group of Ougro- Japanese, in the south that 
of the Dravidian and Malay, and in the west the Turkish 
languages. Lastly, Sanscrit with its derivatives, and the 
Iranian languages represent in the south and south-west the 
inflectional languages. 



Original Localisation of Man. 177 

It is to the linguistic types gathered round the central 
region of Asia that all human languages must be referred ; 
whether from their vocabulary or their grammar, some of 
these Asiatic languages bear a close resemblance to languages 
spoken in regions often very distant, or separated from the 
area in question by entirely different languages. We know 
that several philologists, M. Maury among others, establish 
an intimate connection between the Dravidian languages and 
Australian idioms, and that M. Picot has discovered numbers 
of Aryan words in our oldest European languages. 

Finally, it is from Asia again that our earliest domesticated 
animals are derived. Isidore Geoffroy is entirely agreed with 
Dureau de la Malle upon this point. 

Thus, the present epoch alone considered, everything points 
to this great central plateau, or rather to this great enclosure. 
There, we are inclined to say, the first human beings appeared 
and multiplied till the populations overflowed as from a bowl 
and spread themselves in human waves in every direction. 

IX. PalaBontological studies have, however, very recently 
led to results which are capable of modifying these primary 
conclusions. MM. Heer and de Saporta have informed us 
that in the Tertiary period Siberia and Spitzbergen were 
covered with plants, indicating a temperate climate. MM. 
Murchison, Keyserlink, de Verneuil, and d'Archiac tell us 
that, during the same period, the barren lands of our day 
supported large herbivorous animals, such as the reindeer, 
the mammoth, and the tichorhine rhinoceros. All these ani- 
mals made their appearance at the commencement of the 
Quaternary period. It seems to me that they did not come 
alone. 

I have said above that the discoveries of M. Tabbe Bour- 
geois testify, in my opinion, to the existence of a tertiary 
man. But everything seems to show that as yet his repre- 
sentatives were but few in number. The Quaternary popu- 
lations, on the contrary, were, at least in distribution, quite 
as numerous as the life of the hunter permitted. Are we 
justified in imagining that during the Tertiary period man 



1 78 The Human Species. 

lived in polar Asia side by side with those species which ] 
have just mentioned, and that he supported himself by 
hunting them as he afterwards did in France? The fall of 
temperature compelled the animals to migrate southwards ; 
man must have followed them to find a milder climate, and 
to be within reach of his customary game. Their simultaneous 
arrival in our climates and the apparently sudden multiplica- 
tion of man would thus be easily explained. 

The centre of human appearance might then be carried 
considerably to the north of the region I have just been 
discussing. Perhaps prehistoric archaeology or palaeontology 
will some day confirm or confute this conjecture. 

However this may be, no facts have as yet been discovered 
which authorise us to place the cradle of the human race 
elsewhere than in Asia. There are none which lead us to 
seek the origin of man in hot regions either of existing con- 
tinents, or of one which has disappeared. This view, which 
has been frequently expressed, rests entirely upon the belief 
that the climate of the globe was the same at the time of 
the appearance of man as it is now. Modern science has 
taught us that this is an error. From that time there is 
nothing against our first ancestors having found favourable 
conditions of existence in northern Asia, which is indicated 
by so many facts borrowed from the history of man, and from 
that of animals and plants. 



BOOK V. 

PEOPLING OP THE GLOBE. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



MIGRATIONS BY LAND. — EXODUS OF THE KALMUCKS FROM 

THE VOLGA. 

I. At the point which we have now reached, the connec- 
tion of facts and of their consequences proposes a fresh 
problem. Physiology has proved that there exists but one 
species of man, of which the human groups are races. Zoo- 
logical geography has taught us that this species was origi- 
nally localised in a relatively very limited space. It is 
now met with everywhere, because it has spread by irradia- 
tion in every direction from this centre. The peopling of the 
globe by migrations, is the necessary consequence of the 
preceding facts. 

Polygenists, and the partisans of the autochthony of nations 
have declared that these migrations are impossible in a certain 
number of cases, and have brought forward this pretended 
impossibility as an objection to the doctrine which I uphold. 
Here, again, I turn to facts for my answer. 

II. I confess that I never understood how any value could 
be attached to this argument. Migrations are almost uni- 
versal in history, and in the traditions and legends of the 
new as well as of the old w r orld. We find them among the 
uncivilised nations of our time, and among tribes which are 
still lingering in the lowest stage of savage life. With every 



180 The Hitman Species. 

increase and extension of knowledge, we learn io appreciate 
better the wandering instincts of man. Human palaeonto- 
logy and prehistoric archaeology are daily adding their testi- 
mony to that of the historic sciences. 

To judge from this kind of information alone, it seems 
more than probable that the entire globe was peopled by 
means of migrations and colonisations. The primordial and 
uninterrupted immobility of any human race would be a fact 
at variance with all analogy. It would, once constituted, 
doubtless establish, except under exceptional circumstances, 
a more or less considerable number, generally the great 
majority of its representatives ; but in the course of ages it 
could not fail to have cast off swarms. 

III. The supporters of autochthony lay especial stress upon 
two orders of considerations, the one drawn from the social 
condition of nations when still in their infancy and unpro- 
vided with the means of action which we now possess, the 
other from the obstacles which a hitherto invincible nature 
would oppose to their movements. 

The first objection evidently rests upon an imperfect ap- 
preciation of the aptitudes and tendencies developed in man 
through his different modes of life. The very imperfection 
of the social condition, far from arresting the diffusion of the 
human species, must rather have been favourable to it. 
Agricultural nations are of necessity settled ; to pastoral 
nations, less bound to the soil, special conditions are in- 
dispensable. Hunters, on the contrary, by reason of their 
mode of life, of the necessities which it imposes, and the 
instincts which it develops, cannot but spread in every sense. 
A vast space is necessary to their existence ; as soon as the 
numbers increase, even in a slight degree, they are forced to 
separate or to destroy each other, as is shown so clearly in 
the history of the Red Skins. Nations of hunters and shep- 
herds are then alone fitted for great and distant migrations. 
Agricultural nations are rather colonists. 

Ancient history itself entirely confirms these theoretical 
inductions. We know what the invaders of the Roman world 



Migrations by Land. 1S1 

were, the destroyers of the Eastern Empire, the Arab con- 
querors. The case was the same in Mexico. The Chichimequi 
here represent the Goths and Yandals of the Old World. If 
Asia has so often overrun Europe, if North America has so 
often sent devastating hordes into more southern regions, it 
is because in these two countries man was still in a barbarous 
or savage state. 

IV. Were natural obstacles indeed insurmountable to 
nations destitute of our perfected means of locomotion ? 
This question must be considered from two points of view, 
as the migrations in question are by land or sea. 

The former demands but little attention. The weakness 
of man, and the strength of the barriers which the accidents 
of land, vegetation, or fauna might oppose to him, have un- 
questionably been much exaggerated. Man has always been 
able to vanquish ferocious animals, the rhinoceros having 
formed part of his food as early as the Quaternary period. 
His course has never been arrested by mountains, even when 
encumbered by everything which could make the passage 
most difficult. Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants, 
and Bonaparte with artillery. The progress of the Asiatic 
hordes was no more stopped by the Palus Meotides than that 
of Fernand de Soto by the marshes of Florida. Deserts are 
daily traversed by caravans ; and as to rivers, there is not a 
savage who does not know how to cross them upon some 
raft or other. 

The truth, as is too well proved by the history of travel, is, 
that man alone stops man. Where the latter did not exist, 
there was nothing to oppose the progress of tribes or nations 
advancing slowly and at their own leisure, outstripping or 
passing each other in turn, establishing secondary centres, 
from which, after a time, fresh migrations would take place. 
Even in an inhabited country, a superior invading race would 
not act otherwise. It was thus that the Aryans conquered 
India, that the Paouians advanced, who, starting from a 
centre still unknown, arrived at the Gaboon with a line of 
front of about 250 miles. 



182 The Human Species, \ 

Y. I might dwell upon these general considerations, but it 
will be better to recall briefly a fact which, though of recent 
date, is too generally forgotten, and which shows how an 
entire population can effect a great migration although 
they meet with obstacles of every kind over a great tract of 
country. 

About the year 1616 a horde of Kalmucks, impelled by 
motives with which we are unacquainted, abandoned the 
confines of China, and crossed Asia in order to establish 
themselves in the Khanate of Kazan, upon either shore of 
the Yolga. They placed themselves under the dominion of 
Russia, who readily received the new colonists and respected 
their patriarchal government. In return, the Kalmucks 
proved themselves faithful subjects, and on several occasions, 
furnished the Russian army with numerous and valuable 
detachments of cavalry. This good feeling lasted till the 
time of the Empress Catherine, when she, having to choose 
between two aspirants named Oubacha and Zebeck-Dorchi, 
nominated the former to the government of the horde. The 
infuriated Zebeck determined, in revenge, to lead his fellow- 
countrymen back to China. Seconded by the chief Lama, 
he even persuaded Oubacha himself to join, and the con- 
spiracy, though it included the entire nation, was conducted 
with such secrecy that it escaped the interested vigilance of 
Russia. 

On Jan. 5th, 1771, the Kalmucks might have been seen 
assembling on the left bank of the Yolga. Every half hour 
groups of women, children, and aged numbering from 15,000 
to 20,000, set out in waggons or upon camels, escorted by a 
body of cavalry 10,000 strong. A rear-guard of 80,000 picked 
men covered the retreat of the emigrants. A Russian officer, 
who was detained a prisoner for part of the journey, and has 
preserved these details for us, estimated the whole assemblage 
at more than 600,000 souls. 

The Kalmucks felt the necessity for haste, in order to 
escape the attempts which would assuredly be made by 
Russia to detain them. In seven days they had accom- 



Exodus of the Kalmucks from the Volga. 183 

plished more than 100 leagues, with the weather dry but 
cold. Many of the cattle had succumbed, and the want of 
milk was beginning to be felt, even for the children. On 
arriving at the banks of the Djem, they met with their first 
serious disaster ; an entire clan, numbering 9000 horsemen, 
was massacred by Cossacks. 

At the first intelligence of this flight, however, Catherine 
had despatched an army with instructions to bring back the 
fugitives. The latter had to pass, at a distance of eighty 
leagues from the Djem, a defile which must be taken at any 
price. They advanced by forced marches. Unfortunately 
snow set in, and they were obliged to stop for ten days. On 
arriving at the defile, they found it occupied by Cossacks, 
who were however routed, defeated, and massacred by 
Zebeck. 

The defile was passed, but they were forced to redouble 
their speed, for the Russian army was upon them. They 
killed and salted all the remaining cattle, and left behind 
every incapable woman or child, and all their aged or sick. 
The winter increased in severity, and though they burnt all 
their saddles and waggons, every encampment was marked 
by hundreds of frozen corpses. At length the spring came 
to alleviate their sufferings, and in the beginning of June, 
they crossed the Torgai, which flows into Lake Aksakal, to 
the N.N.E. of Lake Aral. In five months the emigrants had 
accomplished 700 leagues ; they had lost more than 250,000 
souls, whilst the camels alone remained of all their animals. 
The Russian officer, Weseloff, who was shortly after set at 
liberty, was able to regain the Volga with no other guide 
than that of the trail of corpses left upon the route. 

The unfortunate fugitives had hoped to enjoy a rest after 
having crossed the Torgai. But the Russian army still 
followed, and was even reinforced by terrible auxiliaries, the 
Bashkirs and Kirghises, hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks. 
This light cavalry was now in advance, and it would be 
necessary to fight with them while still flying from the 
Russians. They were also obliged to skirt the desert, where 
9 



184 The Human Species. 



\ 



they would have perished from hunger, and to cut their way 
through countries where the inhabitants rose in arms to 
protect their territories against the famished invaders. 
Winter had given place to Summer ; the emigrants suffered 
as much from the heat as they had done from the cold, so 
that the rate of mortality was unaltered. 

At length, in the month of September, the horde reached 
the frontiers of China. For many days they had had no 
water. At the sight of a small lake they all rushed forward 
to quench their thirst ; the confusion was general, when the 
Bashkirs and Kirghises, who had never for a moment ceased 
to harass the fugitives, threw themselves upon the infatuated 
crowd, and would, in all probability, have annihilated them. 
Fortunately, the Emperor Kien-long was hunting in the 
neighbourhood, accompanied, as usual, by a small army. 
Informed of the arrival of the Kalmucks, he had recognised 
them in the distance. The sound of his artillery restored 
the courage of those who were allowing themselves to be 
massacred, and their persecutors suffered a bloody defeat. 
It should be added that Kien-long distributed amongst 
those whom he had saved, the lands which are occupied by 
their descendants at the present time. 

The exodus of the Kalmucks is a sufficient answer to 
every argument that can be advanced on the subject of 
primitive migration by land. In eight months, in spite of 
the intense extremes of cold and heat, of incessant attacks 
from implacable enemies, and in spite of hunger and thirst, 
this nation had accomplished a distance equal in a straight 
line to one-eighth of the circumference of the earth. If we 
take into consideration all the enforced detours, we ought 
probably to double the amount. With such facts as these, 
how can we doubt the possibility of still longer expeditions 
for a tribe advancing peacefully by stages, and having only 
to contend against the difficulties presented by the soil or 
wild beasts ? 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — POLYNESIAN MIGRATIONS. — MIGRA- 
TIONS TO NEW ZEALAND. 

I. The greater number of the defenders of autochthony 
allow that there is no fundamental impossibility in migration 
by land, but maintain that it is different in migrations by 
sea. The peopling of America, and especially that of Poly- 
nesia, by emigrants from our great continent, is, in their 
opinion, far more than could possibly be undertaken or 
accomplished by nations unacquainted with the science of 
astronomy, and the improved method of navigation. Accord- 
ing to them, geographical conditions, winds and currents, 
must oppose an insurmountable obstacle to any enterprise of 
tli is nature. 

Starting from Polynesia, let us see how much truth there 
is in these assertions. This will be taking, so to speak, the 
bull by the horns, for no other part of the globe seems to 
justify to such an extent, the opinions of autochthonists. 

II. Polynesia is not quite so isolated as we are accustomed 
to think. A study of the map alone should be sufficient to 
justify us in holding that a maritime people, accustomed to 
the navigation of the Malay Archipelago, might, on some 
occasion, have pushed as far as New Guinea. This fact is 
now established above all dispute. Beyond New Guinea, 
the Archipelago of New Britain and the Salomon Islands 
would put, so to speak, any fairly adventurous navigators on 
their way to the Fiji Islands; once arrived at this archipelago, 
however little they may have been impelled by the spirit of 
discovery, they must easily have reached Polynesia properly 
so called. New Zealand to the south, and the Sandwich 



1 86 The Human Species. \ 

Islands to the north, remain, however, beyond the limits of 
this route, as it is pointed out by geography. 

For bold mariners to be stopped in their advance, winds 
and currents must have been invariably contrary and irre- 
sistible. The stronger the belief in the universality and 
absolute constancy of the trade winds in these regions, the 
more was this action attributed to them. But the investi- 
gations which have been carried on in the interests of 
science, the writings of Commander Maury, and the charts 
of Captain Kerhallet, have taught us that the variable 
winds due to the cloud-ring extend over almost twenty 
degrees in the maritime area in question. We know, more- 
over, that every year the monsoon drives back the trade 
winds and blows beyond the Sandwich and Tahiti Islands, 
so that instead of the winds being contrary, they are, for 
many months, very favourable for ships sailing eastward. 

Considerations drawn from currents lead almost to the 
same conclusions. In the Pacific, the equatorial current 
running from east to west forms in reality two great 
distinct oceanic streams separated by a large counter 
current flowing in the reverse direction. The latter skirts 
almost the whole northern portion of the Polynesian area ; 
it thus, as it were, forms the outlet from the Indian Archi- 
pelago. There is every indication of its having played 
some part in the history of the dispersion of races in all 
parts of Oceania and to the east of the Malay peninsula. 

Finally, we know that there is no absolute regularity in 
the atmospheric phenomena in the regions of the Pacific, 
any more than elsewhere. This ocean has in common with 
others its typhoons and its tempests, which suddenly change 
the direction of the winds and carry ships before them in 
spite of currents. Islands, both large and small, with 
which it is beset, must often have been visited by sailors 
who had thus lost their way, of which we shall presently 
quote examples. 

Far from being impossible, the peopling of Polynesia by 
navigators starting from the Indian Archipelago is relatively 



Migrations by Sea. 187 

easy at certain times of the year, provided only that the 
navigators are courageous and not afraid of losing sight of 
land. Now we know the character of the Malay popula- 
tions in this respect. 

Again, those who have taken all these circumstances into 
consideration, Malte-Brun, Homme, Lesson, Rienzi, Beechey, 
Wilkes and others, have not hesitated to regard Polynesia 
as having been peopled by migrations advancing from west 
to east. 

III. Writers, on the contrary, who have only consulted 
the imperfect knowledge which we till lately possessed of 
these seas, and the ordinary direction of the winds, have 
either believed in autochthony or have invented various 
theories to explain the presence of man in this multitude of 
islands and remote islets, 

Ellis held that the Polynesians had been conveyed from 
America to Oceania by winds and currents, but this hypo- 
thesis has had scarcely any adherents. It is in too direct 
contradiction with all the physical, philological, and social 
characters, which refer the Polynesians to the Malay races 
as strongly as they separate them from the Americans. 

Dumont d'Urville has proposed a theory which, at first 
sight, is more satisfactory, and still has a few supporters. 
In his opinion, Polynesia is the remains of a great continent 
which was originally connected with Asia. This land sank 
after some geological revolutions ; the sea covered the 
plains and hills, the highest summits only being now 
visible and forming the present archipelago. The Poly- 
nesians are the descendants of those who survived the 
catastrophe. 

This hypothesis has the advantage of preserving those 
relations which were broken by that of Ellis. And, curious 
to relate, it agrees with the tradition of the deluge as 
preserved by the Tahitians. They say that the great inun- 
dation happened without either rain or tempest. It was 
the sea which rose and covered the whole earth with the 
exception of a flat rock where one man and a woman took 



\ 
1 88 The Human Species. 

refuge. We might say that there was nothing in this 
account but a mistake which is easily understood. The 
sea never rises, but the land may sink, and other people 
besides the Tahitians have been deceived. 

Nevertheless, we cannot accept the theory of Dumont 
d'Urville. It is in contradiction to the zoological facts so 
thoroughly investigated by Darwin and Dana. If some of 
the atolls of Oceania shew signs of subsidence, a great 
number of islands offer incontestable proofs of upheaval, 
and Tahiti itself is one of the latter. 

But the most serious argument which can be brought 
against d'Urville is derived from the inhabitants themselves. 
If travellers agree upon one point, it is that from the 
Sandwich Islands to New Zealand, from the Tonga Islands 
to Easter Island, all the Polynesians belong to the same 
race, and speak the same language with mere variations of 
dialect. 

Now the Polynesian area, the limits of which I have 
just pointed out, is of greater extent than the whole of 
Asia. What would an Asiatic Polynesia be like, if that 
continent were to sink beneath the waters and leave only 
the summits of its mountains visible, where some repre- 
sentatives of the present inhabitants might take refuge ? 
Is it not at once evident that each archipelago,- and often 
each island, would have its own race and language ? 

The considerations drawn from the identity of popula- 
tions and languages in Polynesia are of themselves sufficient 
to justify the assertion that all the Islanders have a common 
origin ; and consequently, that, starting from some unknown 
point, they have, in their advance from archipelago to archi- 
pelago, peopled by degrees the maritime world in which we 
find them. 

Horatio Hale, the eminent anthropologist of the scientific 
expedition of the United States, was the first to approach 
the problem from a general point of view ; he solved it as 
far as he was able with the data collected by himself, and 
sketched the first chart of Polynesian migrations. Fresh 






Polynesian Migrations. 189 

facts have been obtained since that time. Sir George Grey 
has published the historical songs of the Maories ; Thomson, 
Shortland, and Hochstetter have brought to light fresh tradi- 
tions ; M. Re my published a history of Hawaii arranged by 
a native. M. Gaussin has carried off the prize in philology 
by his admirable work upon the Polynesian language ; the 
Depot of the French Marine has received special documents 
from Tahiti to which General Ribourt, Admiral Lavaud, and 
Admiral Bruat have added the results of their own re- 
searches. These unpublished materials have been liberally 
placed at my disposal, and I have added to them some 
facts which have been forgotten. I have thus been able to 
confirm, from a general point of view, the conclusions of 
Hale, making, however, some important modifications, and 
to complete, again with some modifications, his chart of 
migrations. My readers will understand that I cannot here 
enter into a detailed discussion, and I must beg to refer 
them to my work upon The Polynesians and their Migra- 
tions. I shall confine myself to a short summary of the 
results which, I believe, it demonstrates. 

IV. Both physical and philological characters show that 
the Polynesians are a branch of those Malay races which 
are divided into numerous groups by shades of difference, 
sometimes strongly marked. It is to one of these groups 
which are least distant from the white type that the nations 
in question must be referred. 

The starting point of these migrations, which were to 
extend so far into the east, was Boeroe Island, which is 
represented in all maps between Celebes and Ceram. This 
conclusion, already proposed with some diffidence by Hale, 
seems to me to be placed beyond a doubt by all the tradi- 
tions collected at Tonga by Mariner, with whose work the 
learned American seems to have been unacquainted. 

On quitting the Malay seas, the emigrants must have 
followed as nearly as possible the course given above. 
Repulsed doubtless by the black races which then, as now, 
occupied New Guinea, they passed Melanesia. Some canoes, 



190 The Human Species. \ 

however, probably separated from the others, \ reached the 
eastern extremity of this great island, and there founded a 
colony recently discovered by Commander Moresby. It is 
this colony which has doubtless furnished the several archi- 
pelagos of Melanesia with at least a part of the Polynesian 
elements which have been observed by several travellers. 
We know, however, thanks to the researches of M. de 
Rochas, that the Polynesian elements of the little archi- 
pelago of the Loyalty Islands is due to an emigration 
passing in 1770 from the Willis Islands to New Caledonia. 

The great stream of emigration must have left all 
Melanesia to the south, and have separated into three 
branches. One would arrive at the Samoa Islands, another 
at the Tonga Islands, and a third at the Fiji Islands. The 
two first archipelagos were evidently uninhabited, the latter 
already possessed by a black population. An alliance was 
at first made, however, between the aborigines and the 
emigrants, but before long the war of races broke out, the 
Malays were expelled, probably leaving behind them some 
of their women. In this manner the mixed character of 
the Fijian population was produced, with which all travellers 
have been struck. The ejected Malays gained the Tonga 
Islands. Finding them occupied by fellow-countrymen they 
attacked and defeated them. Instead of massacring or 
enslaving them they invented serfdom, an institution which 
has only been met with in this archipelago. 

Whilst the Malay colonies founded in the Fiji and 
Tonga Islands were dispersed and desolated by a fratricidal 
war, those in the Samoan archipelago prospered. The 
population became denser : the spirit of adventure was not 
as yet extinguished, fresh emigrations took to the sea, 
advancing in the direction which had led to the first 
discoveries. At this period the island of Savai played an 
important part, according to the universal testimony of 
Polynesian traditions. Its name appears in almost all the 
archipelagos, scarcely modified by local dialects, in the 
Sandwich Islands and in New Zealand, in the Marquesas 



Polynesian Migrations, 191 

Islands as well as in Tahiti, and as far as the Manaia Islands. 
Finally, Tupai'a, in drawing the curious map, which has been 
preserved by Forster, designates Savai as the mother of all 
the others, "and represents it as much larger than Tahiti. 
This is an error, but this very error proves beyond a doubt 
the importance of this locality from our present point of 
view. 

With the exception of a single emigration, which passed 
directly from Tonga to the Marquesas Islands, it is from 
the Samoan archipelago, and from Savai in particular, that 
all the great expeditions appear to have started, which 
formed secondary centres elsewhere. Tahiti and the Manaia 
Islands are the two principal. The former peopled the 
north of the Pomotous and part of the Marquesas, which, 
in turn, sent out colonists to the Sandwich Islands, where, 
however, they had been preceded by the Tahitians. The 
latter, in which there were both Tahitians and Samoans, 
pushed their colonies as far as Rapa, to the Gambier Islands, 
to the south-east extremity of Polynesia and to New Zealand 
in the south-west. 

V. We have only isolated and very incomplete accounts of 
the greater number of these migrations. Though sufficient 
to remove all doubt as to the fact, they tell us nothing of 
the circumstances which accompanied or followed them. It 
is quite otherwise when we come to consider New Zealand. 
Thanks to the songs collected by Sir George Grey, we possess 
the detailed history of this colonisation. This exception is 
doubly fortunate as giving us information upon a number 
of important points, and precisely in reference to those 
islands which, from being situated at a great distance from 
Polynesia, properly so called, favour autochthonic hypotheses 
more than all the rest of the area. It seems to me, there- 
fore, to be advisable to enter into a few details upon the 
subject. 

It is the inhabitants of Rarotonga, one of the principal 
islands of Manaia, who had the honour of discovering and 
colonising New Zealand. An emigration from Tonga may, 



f92 The Human Species. y 

\ 
however, at some unknown period have possibly joined 
them. \ 

The Christopher Columbus of this little world was a 
certain Ngahue, who was compelled to fly from 'his country 
to escape the persecutions of a queen, who wished to rob 
him of a jasper stone. It was doubtless chance which led 
him to New Zealand. t He here discovered several pieces of 
jasper, which probably restored him to the favour of the 
female chief, for we do not hear that he was molested on 
his return to Rarotonga. 

During the absence of Ngahue a general war had broken 
out in his island. The vanquished party followed the advice 
of the traveller, who persuaded them to go and occupy the 
recently discovered land with him. Several chiefs joined 
together and constructed six canoes, the names of which 
are still preserved. The song translated by Sir George 
Grey informs us that one of them, the Arawa, was made of 
a tree which had been felled in Rarotonga, situated on the 
other side of Hawai'ki. This was one of those secondary 
Savais which I have mentioned above, and the place from 
which the emigrants started. " Once," says one of those 
songs already quoted, " our ancestors separated ; some were 
left at Hawai'ki, and others came here in canoes." 

The same song describes the accidents of the voyage, the 
storms which the navigators met with, the care bestowed 
upon the first culture of the soil, the exploring expeditions 
undertaken in the new country, and the disagreements 
which occurred between the different crews. They show that 
the connection with the mother country continued to exist 
for some time, so much so indeed that a young woman 
accomplished the voyage with only a few companions, and 
warlike expeditions started sometimes from Hawa'iki and 
sometimes from the colony to avenge some of those outrages 
which were considered by these races as demanding the life 
of the offender. 

There is nothing astonishing in these passages. The 
Polynesians knew perfectly well how to direct their course 



Polynesian Migrations. 193 

at sea by the stars, and the route from one point to another 
once observed was inscribed, if we may use the expression, 
in a song which would never be forgotten. They had a very 
correct general idea of the whole of their maritime world. 
The map drawn by Tupa'ia, which I have reproduced in my 
book, is equal to those of our savants of the Middle Ages, 
while it embraces a considerable area. Tupa'ia had seen for 
himself several of the islands which he represents. Accord- 
ing to the calculations of Cook, he must have gone westward 
to a distance of 1,600 miles. But it was from the sacred 
songs of his country that he acquired his knowledge of the 
rest of Polynesia, and was able to sketch it with tolerable 
accuracy. 

As to the canoes in question, they were the same as the 
pirogues, which are mentioned by all travellers with admira- 
tion, and are declared by Cook to be very suitable for long 
voyages. This is a fact which is often established by the 
very precise details contained in some of the songs translated 
by Sir George Grey. We see, for example, one of the 
emigrant chiefs, Ngatoro-i-Rangi, "mount upon the roof of 
the hut constructed upon the platform which joined the two 
canoes." We have only to add that the Avawa and other 
similar vessels generally carried 140 warriors, and it will at 
once appear how devoid of foundation are the assertions of 
those writers who declare these voyages to have been im- 
possible for want of sufficient means of transport. 

VI. The various documents which we now possess have 
not only been of service in proving beyond a doubt the 
general fact of migrations, and in acquainting us with the cir- 
cumstances by which some of them were accompanied ; they 
even enable us to indicate with very tolerable exactness the 
date of some of the most important. 

This result is generally obtained by the genealogies of the 
principal families. Each forms a kind of litany, which is 
sung in fixed rhythm, and of which each verse contains the 
name of a chief and those of his wife and son. Anyone, 
therefore, capable of remembering a song of one hundred 



194 The Human Species, 

verses may easily learn the longest of these \genealogies. 
Confided to memory by the Avepos or Keepers of the 
Archives, they were preserved with jealous care. Thomson 
informs us that in New Zealand a serious inquiry was made 
into these verbal documents, and their authenticity was so 
well established, that they have an equal value in matters of 
justice with our deeds. 

Now, in the Marquesas, Gattanewa, the friend of Porter, 
who was descended from the first colonists of the Tongan 
portion of the archipelago, had only eighty-eight predecessors. 
At Hawai", the genealogy of the Tamehameha, according to 
M. Remy, is contained in seventy- five verses. In 1840, 
according to Williams, Rarotonga was governed by the twenty- 
ninth descendant of Karika, the founder of the colony. In the 
Gambier Islands M. Maigret saw the twenty-seventh reigning 
chief since the arrival of the first colonists from Rarotonga. 

Hale has shown very clearly that the Hawaian genealogy 
contains at the outset, like many others in Europe, some 
fabulous personages. He considered it necessary to remove 
the first twenty-two verses. Some such correction should 
very probably be made in that of the Marquesas Islanders. 
As to those of Rarotonga and the Gambier Islands they are 
too recent to have been already contaminated by fable. 

Hale, guided by considerations which I cannot here dis- 
cuss, attributes to each verse of these genealogies the value 
of a generation, from twenty-five to thirty years. Thomson 
and M. Remy, however, having had time to gather more 
precise information, regard them as indicating merely reigns. 
Calculating the mean duration of these reigns from that given 
by the list of French kings from Clovis to Louis XVII., we 
obtain as a result 21 "1 3 years. 

According to these data, the arrival of the Tongans in the 
Marquesas Islands must have taken place in the year 417 of 
our era ; that of the Tahitans in about 701 ; Karika must 
have colonized Rarotonga in 1207, and the Gambier Islands 
have been peopled in 1270. 

For New Zealand we have a double source of information, 



Polynesian Migrations. 195 

and the results thus obtained agree so well that we cannot 
doubt their accuracy. The genealogies of the greater number 
of the Maori chiefs go back as far as those bold pioneers 
whose history I have related. Thomson, who has examined 
several, considers that the number of chiefs who have 
succeeded each other in every family since the colonization, 
may be estimated at about twenty. Taking the kings of 
England as a term of comparison, he attributes to the reign 
of each chief a duration of 22^ T years. These data took 
him back to the year 1419. The list of French kings would 
only give the year 1457. 

On the other hand, in one of the songs preserved by Sir 
George Grey, there is an account of the history of the son of 
Hotunui, one of the colonizing chiefs of New Zealand, and of 
his immediate descendants. At the fourth generation a 
daughter was born, " from whom," the legend adds, " are 
descended in eleven generations all the principal chiefs now 
living of the tribe of Ngalipaoa." Taking thirty years for 
each generation, we find that the migration of Hotunui took 
place 450 years before the time when Sir George Grey re- 
ceived the document (about 1850), which carries us back to 
the year 1400. 

Thus, these Maories, whom autochthonists regard as 
children of the soil, cannot have landed in New Zealand 
earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century. 

VII. I have hitherto only spoken of more or less voluntary 
migrations, such as might be induced by a spirit of adventure, 
civil troubles, or the authority of a priest despatching an 
excess of population in search of new countries. But in 
treating of Polynesia, we must, as I have already remarked, 
take accidents by sea into consideration. Several examples 
are known. It was in this manner that Toubouai was 
peopled, which at the close of the last century, within an 
interval of a few years, Received three canoes from different 
islands, one of which was Tahiti. All three had been carried 
away by a storm and driven ashore upon this island, which, 
till then, had been uninhabited. 



\ 

196 The Human Species. \ 

Such, again, is the history of the chief Touwari and his 
companions, men, women, and children, discovered by Cap- 
tain Beechey upon Byam- Martin Island, which they had 
begun to colonize. They had started from Anaa, an island 
situated two hundred and forty-five miles to the east of 
Tahiti, to go and pay homage to; Po mare, but were surprised 
at Maiatea by the monsoon, which had come sooner than 
usual. Driven to the south-east into the midst of the 
Pomatou Islands, they landed at first on Barrow Island. 
Finding, however, no means of subsistence, they took to the 
sea again, and fell in with the island where they were found 
by the English navigator. 

This example is perfect, since it realises all the circum- 
stances indicated by the theory. It establishes the existence 
of regular relations between islands situated at great 
distances from each other ; it proves one of those occurrences 
which must more than once have caused these bold naviga- 
tors to wander from the usual route ; it shows how a 
remote island was able to receive all the elements of a 
colony ; it leaves no doubt as to the possibility of dispersion 
going on in an exactly opposite direction to that of the trade 
winds. We need only add that the passage from Maiatea to 
Barrow and Byam-Martin Islands is. more than five hundred 
and sixty miles, and we shall understand without any 
difficulty how Polynesia was peopled by voluntary or 
accidental colonization. 

VIII. There is one more circumstance which it is impor- 
tant to observe, and which is completely at variance with all 
autochthonist hypotheses, that, namely, on approaching the 
islands where they have been discovered by us, the Polyne- 
sian found them uninhabited. 

The songs, for which we are indebted to Sir George Grey, 
show that in New Zealand the greater number of the first 
emigrants met with no traces of a previous population. One 
only, named Mana'ia, found upon a promontory aborigines 
of the country. This exception, from the very reason that 
it is unique, proves that this population could not have 



Polynesian Migrations. 197 

been very numerous. It lias slightly altered the type of 
the lowest grades of the Maories, to which it has been 
confined. The portrait published by Hamilton Smith, and 
one of the skulls in the possession of the Museum, inform 
us that these supposed aborigines were Papuans. It is 
evident that they had reached New Zealand in consequence 
of some mischance similar to those I have just mentioned, 
and had not even had time to multiply sufficiently to occupy 
the entire shores of the North Island. 

The traditions of the Sandwich Islands furnish us with a 
fact of the same nature. They tell us that the first colonists 
coming from Tahiti found in these islands gods and spirits, 
who inhabited the caves and with whom they entered into 
alliance. It is evident that we have here a troglodyte people, 
whose importance the legend has been pleased to exaggerate, 
and whose origin it is not difficult to find. If Kadou, whose 
history has been preserved by Kotzebue, instead of leaving 
the Caroline Islands for the Radak Islands, had started from 
the latter, and if he had made almost the same passage in 
the same direction, he would have landed in the Sandwich 
Islands. 

The mixture of Polynesian and Micronesian races at once 
explains the darkness of colour and want of purity in the 
features of the Hawaians. Perhaps the same cause may 
account for the difference in features, manners, and industry 
which is presented by some tribes of the Low Archipelago. 

Apart from these few and, as we see, very feeble exceptions, 
all the islands of Polynesia appear to have been uninhabited 
when the navigators from Boeroe or their descendants landed. 
This fact is distinctly proved by traditions in Kingsmill, 
Rarotonga, Mangarewa, the Toubouai Islands, etc. Purity 
of race testifies that this was also the case with the Tonga, 
Samoa, and Marquesas Islands. 

IX. Finally, the facts to which I have been obliged to 
confine myself are entirely opposed to the theories of autoch- 
thonists, and lead to the following conclusions : Polynesia, a 
region which, from its geographical conditions, seems at first 



198 The Human Species. 

sight to be isolated from the rest of the world, has been 
peopled by means of voluntary migrations and accidental dis- 
persion, passing from west to east, at least as a general rule. 
The Polynesians, coming from Malaya, and the Isle of 
Boeroe in particular, first established and settled themselves 
in the Archipelagos of Samoa and Tonga. Thence they in- 
vaded by degrees the maritime world open before them; they 
found, almost without an exception, that all the countries 
where they landed were uninhabited, and only on two or 
three occasions met with very small tribes of a more or less 
black type. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — MIGRATIONS IN AMERICA. 

I. The peopling of Polynesia and America is a problem 
which presents, if I may use the expression, inverse condi- 
tions. There is, in reality, no geographical difficulty in the 
latter. The proximity of the two continents at Behring Straits, 
the existence in this channel of the Saint Laurence islands, 
the largest of which is situated exactly half-way between the 
two opposite continents, the connection formed between 
Kamschatka and the peninsula of Alaska by the Aleutian 
Islands; the maritime habits of all these peoples; the presence 
of the Tchukchees on the two opposite shores ; the voyages 
which they undertake from one continent to the other on 
simple matters of commerce, leave no doubt as to the facility 
with which the Asiatic races could pass into North America 
through the Polar Regions. 

More to the south, the current of Tessan, the Jwuro-sivo, 
or black stream of the- Japanese, opens a great route for 
navigators. This current has frequently cast floating bodies 
and abandoned junks upon the shores of California. Instances 
of this fact have been observed in our own time. It is im- 
possible that they should not also have happened before the 
period of European discoveries. Asiatic maritime nations 
must at all times have been carried to America from all those 
places which are washed by the Black Stream. 

The Equatorial current of the Atlantic opens a similar 
route leading from Africa to America, and there are some 
evidences, rare it is true, showing that wrecks have been 
carried in this direction. It is possible, therefore, that the 
same may also have happened to man. 



\ 
200 The Htiman Species. \ 

II. We shall not, therefore, be surprised at finding in the New 
World representatives of races which seem to belong originally 
to the Old World ; we shall easily understand the multiplicity 
of American races, which is perhaps still contested b} 7 some 
of Morton's followers, but firmly established in the opiuion of 
every unprejudiced person by the testimony of Humboldt and 
d'Orbigny's classical work on L'Homme Americain. 

Black populations have been found in America in very 
small numbers only, and as isolated tribes in the midst of 
very different nations. Such are the Charruas of Brazil, the 
black Carabees of Saint Vincent in the Gulf of Mexico, the 
Jamassi of Florida, the dark-complexioned Californians, who 
are, perhaps, the dark men mentioned in Quiche traditions, 
and by some old Spanish adventurers. 

Such, again, is the tribe of which Balbao saw some repre- 
sentatives in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in 1513. 
Yet it would seem, from the expressions made use of by 
Gomara, that these were true Negroes. This type was well 
known to the Spaniards, and if they had encountered black 
men with glossy hair, like the Charruas, they would un- 
doubtedly have been much impressed by it, and would have, 
mentioned the fact. 

The white type is more widely represented in America 
than the black. Along the whole of the north-west coast, 
Meares, Marchand, La Perouse, Dixon and Maurelle have 
observed populations, which, judging from some of their des- 
criptions, would seem to be of pure white race. Upon the 
Upper Missouri, the Kiawas, Kaskaias and the Lee Panis 
possess, we are assured, the attributes of the purest white 
races, including their fair hair. The Mandans have, from our 
present point of view, always attracted attention. Captain 
Graa, again, found in Greenland men speaking Esquimau, 
but tall, thin, and fair. In South America, Ferdinand 
Columbus, in his relation of his father's voyages, compares 
the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders, and 
describes the inhabitants of San Domingo as still more 
beautiful and fair. In Peru, the Charazanis, studied hy 



Migrations in America. 201 

M. Ad grand, also resemble- the Canary Islanders, and differ 
from all the surrounding tribes. L'Abbe Brasseur de Bour- 
bourg imagined himself surrounded by Arabs when all his 
Indians of Rabinal were around him, for they had, he says, 
their complexion, features, and beard. Finally, Gomara and 
Pierre Martyr offer a similar testimony, and the latter 
speaks of the Indians of the Parian Gulf as having fair hair 
(capillis flams). 

It is useless to insist upon the anthropological relations 
between America and Asia. Most travellers have insisted 
upon this point. I have heard M. de Castelnau say, " When 
I was surrounded by my Siamese servants, I imagined myself 
in America;" and M. Vavasseur, assisting at the visit of the 
Siamese ambassadors, remarked, "But those are my Boto- 
cudos." I should, however, observe that the skull in the 
Collection in the Paris Museum indicates less resemblance 
than the external characters. 

America has, moreover, its distinct races with which the 
foreign elements have more or less blended. She has also 
had her quaternary man. This is a fact which must not be 
overlooked, and by which the problem is singularly compli- 
cated. We shall presently see that geological revolutions do 
not involve the disappearance of existing human races. There 
can be no doubt that in America there are descendants of 
men who were contemporary with the mastodon, just as, in 
Europe, we find the descendants of those who were contem- 
poraries of the mammoth. Unfortunately our knowledge of 
the physical characters of the American fossil man is as yet 
very slight. 

III. It does not, however, seem to me the less probable 
that the most pronounced ethnological elements, such as 
White, Yellow, and Black, which we encounter at the present 
time, have overspread this continent by means of migration. 
This fact is proved by history in a certain number of cases ; 
and some very simple considerations seem to me to render 
others no less probable. 

For example, we only find black men in America in those 



202 The Hitman Species. 



places which are washed by either the Kouro-sivo); or the Equa- 
torial Current of the Atlantic or its divisions. A glance at the 
maps of Captain Kerhallet will at once show us the rarity 
and the distribution of these tribes. It is evident that the 
more or less pure black elements have been brought from 
the Asiatic Archipelagos and from Africa through some 
accident at sea ; they have there mixed with the local races, 
and have formed those small isolated groups which are dis- 
tinguished by their colour from the surrounding tribes. 

The presence of Semitic types in America, certain tradi- 
tions of Guiana, and the use in this country of a weapon 
entirely characteristic of the ancient Canary Islanders, can 
be easily explained in the same manner, and the explanation 
rests upon positive facts. Twice during the last century, in 
1731 and 1764, small ships passing from one point of the 
Canary Islands to another have been driven by storms into 
the region of the trade winds and equatorial current, and 
have drifted as far as America. What has happened in our 
time must often have happened before. We cannot then be 
surprised at finding upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 
tribes which are more or less related to the African Whites 
by their physical characters. 

IV. The geographical position of the continents at once 
explains why the yellow type has so many representatives in 
America. Supposing, which seems to be contradicted by 
some evidences, that the coast-lines have not altered since 
the latest geological era, the facilities presented by the 
passage are quite sufficient, and the Asiatic races have 
profited by them to a considerable extent. America was 
known to them long before Europeans possessed anything 
beyond legends on this subject, the meaning of which is still 
hotly disputed. 

It is to De Guignes that we owe the discovery of this fact, 
the importance of which is evident. He revealed to Europe 
what he had learnt in Chinese books. These books speak of 
a country called Fou-Sang, situated at a distance, to the 
east of China far beyond the limits of Asia. De Guignes 



Migrations in America. 203 

did not hesitate to identify it with America. To the proofs 
drawn from the Chinese books, he added some isolated and 
hithert&ibrgotten facts which were borrowed from Europeans, 
from George Home, Gomara, etc. 

The/ work of the French Orientalist was received with a 
"JSffy singular, yet accountable repugnance. Apart from the 
mistrust excited by every unexpected discovery, many people 
were annoyed to find that Europeans had been preceded by 
Asiatics in the New World ; it seemed to them to be de- 
throning Christopher Columbus. A Prussian, who had 
become a naturalized Frenchman, gave the support of his 
great learning to all who required no more than the contra- 
diction of the fact, and it was almost unanimously agreed 
that De Guignes had deceived himself. More justice is 
now done to him, and anyone who will study the question 
in an unprejudiced spirit, cannot but acknowledge that he 
is risrht. 

Klaproth held that Fou-Sang was nothing else than 
Japan. He forgot that the country of which the Chinese 
writers spoke contained copper, gold and silver, but no 
iron. This characteristic, which is inapplicable to Japan, 
agrees, on the contrary, in every respect with America. To 
support his assertion, he maintained that the Chinese could 
neither recognize their direction nor measure distances in 
their voyages with precision. He forgot that they were 
acquainted with the compass 2000 years before our era, and 
that they possessed maps far superior to the vague conjec- 
tures of the Middle Ages. 

As to the supposed error in distance of which Klaproth 
speaks, there was no such thing. Paravey informs us that 
Fou-Sang was placed at a distance of 20,000 Li from China. 
Now a Li, according to M. Pothier, is equal to 444 5 metres 
(486 yards). In following the course of the Kouro-Sivo, 
these numbers would exactly bring us to California, where 
the abandoned junks were stranded ; they prove what was 
indicated by the theory, that this current had been the route 
for voyages to and from America. 



\ 

204 The Human Species. \ 

Paravey has published a facsimile of a Chiniese drawing 
representing a lama. This at once answers one o^ the objec- 
tions of Klaproth, and carries us considerably to ^^ south 
of California. Amongst the productions of Fou-S*; g the 
Chinese authors mention the horse, which, as we know, did 
not exist in America. It is clear that they called by this 
name the animal which in Peru was used as a beast of 
burden. This habit of calling by a common name species 
which are known and new species which resemble them in 
certain respects, certainly existed elsewhere than in China. 
This habit led the Conquestadores to call the puma a lion, 
and the bison a cow. 

But did the Chinese then extend their voyages as far as 
Peru ? This can hardly be doubted after the preceding testi- 
mony, and after that which is contained in the Geografia 
del Peru by Paz Soldan. The following is the translation 
of a passage for which I am indebted to M. Pinart : " The 
inhabitants of the village of Eten in the province of Lam- 
baye'que, and the department of Libertad, seem to belong 
to a different race from those of the surrounding countries. 
They live, and intermarry, only amongst themselves, and 
speak a language which is perfectly understood by the 
Chinese, who have been brought to Peru during the last 
few years." 

The Chinese books studied by De Guignes and Paravey 
speak of religious missions, which, towards the close of the 
fifth century, left the country of Ki-Pin to carry to Fou- 
Sang the doctrines of Buddha. The researches of M. G. 
d'Eichthal have fully confirmed these accounts. The strong- 
est resemblances have been pointed out between the monu- 
ments and the Buddhist figures of Asia and the same 
products of American art. The comparison of legends has 
led the author to the same result. 

Finally, according to an encyclopaedia, from which M. de 
Bisny has translated a passage, the Japanese were acquainted 
with Fou-Sang, which they called Fou-So, and with the 
missions which had left the land Ki-Pin for that country. 



Migrations in America. 205 

Although its real position must still be doubtful, they show 
that Fou-So and Japan are two different countries. 

To this formal testimony derived from the Chinese, we 
must add that of Europeans. The first is Gomara, who 
witnessed the conquest of Mexico, and was a contemporary 
of the expedition which followed. He tells us that com- 
panions of Francesco-Vasquez de Coronado, in sailing up the 
Western Sea as far as 40° N. lat., met with ships laden with 
merchandise, which, as they were led to understand by the 
sailors, had been at sea for more than a month. The 
Spaniards concluded that they had come from Coihay or 
Sina. 

The primary object of the ships in question was evidently 
that of commerce. Such pacific relations did not, however, 
always exist between the native Americans and the strangers 
from the west. This is proved by the testimony of an Indian 
traveller, preserved by Le Page du Prat. Moncacht-Ape 
(the pain-killer) was certainly a remarkable man. Impelled 
by the desire which drove Cosma from Koros to Thibet, the 
wish to discover the original home of his tribe, he went at 
first in a north-easterly direction as far as the mouth of the 
St. Lawrence, returned to Louisiana and started again for 
the north-west. Having ascended the Missouri to its source, 
he crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Pacific 
Ocean by descending a river, which he called the beautiful 
river, and w r hich can be no other than the Oregon. 

There he heard of white, bearded men, provided with arms 
hurling thunder, who came every year in a great boat to 
look for wood which they used for dyeing, and carried off the 
natives to reduce them to a state of slavery. Moncacht-Ap(5, 
who was acquainted with the nature of firearms, advised his 
friends to prepare an ambuscade. The plans which he 
suggested were a complete success. Several of the aggressors 
were slain. The Americans at once saw that they were not 
Europeans. Their clothes were quite different, and their 
arms more clumsy, while their powder w r as coarser, and 
did not carry so far. Everything tended to show they were 



206 The Human Species, 

Japanese, accustomed to make descents upon x this coast of 
America exactly similar to those undertaken bf some crews 
in search of sandal wood in Melanesia, who seize' the blacks 
whenever they have an opportunity, and give them up to 
cotton planters under the name of coolies. 

The narrative of Moncacht-Ape' was given in the year 
1725, three or four years before the discovery of the Behring 
Straits, and more than thirty years before European voyages 
had acquainted us with the north-west of America. The 
exact details which he gives as to the general direction of 
the coast, and of its bend at the peninsula of Alaska, are a 
sure proof of the correctness and truth of this narrative. 
Thus, however much it may wound European pride, we 
must acknowledge that Chinese and Japanese Asiatics 
knew and, in different ways, explored America long before 
Europeans. 

V. Nevertheless, these civilized nations, whose ships visited 
America, do not seem to have founded large settlements, 
which could become the starting point of a new colony. 
Had it been so, they would have left more traces of their 
passage in the language. Now, with the exception of the 
small Chinese colony of which I have spoken above, there is 
scarcely one fact of this nature which can be considered as 
established. Some Calif ornian colonies are mentioned as 
speaking a Japanese dialect. M. Guillemin Taraire has re- 
produced this information in reference to a tribe of Santa 
Barbara ; he adds that the language of some others includes 
Japanese and Chinese words. Unfortunately the researches 
of M. Pinart, far from confirming these results, only tend to 
contradict them ; we can, therefore, only speak with great 
reserve upon this point. 

It seems to me to have been principally in the north that 
the great migrations took place, and that they were under- 
taken by savage nations. The traditions borrowed by l'Abbe 
Brasseur de Bourbourg from the sacred books of the Quiches, 
and those of the Delawares which have been preserved by 
Hecke welder, appear to me to offer much information on 



Migrations in America. 207 

this point. By comparing the missionary's narrative with 
some facts of Mexican history anterior to the conquest, I have 
been enabled to determine approximately the date of the 
arrival of the Red-Skins in the basin of the Missouri. It 
seems to me that we cannot refer it to an earlier date than 
the ninth, or at most the eighth, century. 

These traditions bring to light another and no less impor- 
tant fact : namely, that the Alonquins and Iroquois, after 
having crossed the valley of the Mississippi, from which they 
drove the people, whose singular monuments are now the 
object of study, had no more fighting to do, and found the 
country uninhabited as far as the coast, and far away to the 
south. The traditions of some tribes of South America 
point, though not so plainly, to the same conclusion. Thus, 
probably in the two halves of the New World, and certainly 
in the northern portion, those uninhabited lands existed 
which we have already noticed in Polynesia, and the pre- 
tended American autochthon of Agassiz, Morton, Nott, and 
Gliddon was, on the contrary, one of the latest arrivals upon 
this continent. 

These facts of thin populations, and of their low social 
condition, which was everywhere the case except in those 
centres where legislators had appeared who were perhaps 
entirely foreign to the soil, involuntarily lead us to the 
conclusion that the general peopling of America by the 
existing races, though it may be traced to an earlier period 
than that of Polynesia, is, nevertheless, much more recent 
than that of the Old World. 

VI. It is not from Asia alone that America has received its 
population. They came from Europe also long before the 
era of great discoveries; I am not now alluding either to the 
story of Atlantis, of which many interpretations are still 
possible, or to Phoenician and Carthaginian traditions, nor 
again, to the pretentions of the Basques and Dieppois, 
although they appear to be supported by facts, which are, to 
say the least, curious; nor to Irish and Welsh traditions, 
though Humboldt considers them well worthy of attention. 
10 



208 The Human Species, 

I shall only speak of the voyages accomplished by the 
Scandinavians as related by Ram from Irish sagas, and 
which have been lately republished in detail by M. Gravier. 

We are not now dealing with isolated facts belonging to 
the darkness of those ages which they only occasionally 
illuminate. It is a detailed history embracing several gene- 
rations, and sometimes giving circumstantial details which 
explain, and are confirmed by certain modern discoveries. 

In 877, according to M. Gravier, perhaps as early as 770, 
according to M. Lacroix, Gunnbjorn discovered Greenland. 
In 886 Erick the Red doubled Cape Farewell, and built at 
the head of a fjord his house Brattahilda, the lately dis- 
covered ruins of which have been compared to those of a 
town. In 986 Rjarn Meriulfson, when on his way to Green- 
land, was carried by a storm as far as the shores of New 
England. In 1000, Leif, the son of Erick the Red, started 
for the country discovered by Bjarn. Accompanied by 35 
men, he ran down as far as Rhode Island, where he found 
the vine, and gave the name of Yin-land to the country of 
which he took possession ; he built Leifsbudir, passed the 
winter there, and noticed that the shortest day began at half- 
past seven and ended at half-past four. This observation, 
which agrees with all the other details, places Leifsbudir 
near the present town of Providence, 41° 24' 10" N. lat. 

Thorwald succeeded his brother Leif. Followed by 30 
warriors, he reached Vinland and passed the winter at Leifs- 
budir. In the spring of 1003 he ran down as far as Long 
Island, explored the neighbourhood, and returned in the 
autumn to his starting-point. The following summer he 
turned his steps northwards. Near Cape Alderton, his com- 
panions surprised three boats made of osier, and covered 
with leather, and slew eight of the men by whom they were 
manned. The ninth escaped ; he soon returned, however, 
accompanied by a great number of his fellow-countrymen, 
who show T ered upon the Scandinavians a cloud of arrows and 
then fled. But Thorwald, mortally wounded, was interred 
in this land which he had expressed a desire to inhabit. It 



migrations in America. 209 

may possibly have been his tomb which was discovered at 
the end of the last century in Rainsford Island, near to Hull 
and Cape Alderton ; a tomb of solid masonry, containing 
a skeleton, and a sword with an iron hilt, indicating a 
period anterior to the fifteenth century. 

In 1007 Thorfinn, accompanied by his wife Gudrida., 
started with three ships carrying 160 men, some women, and 
cattle. This time the object was to found a colony. They 
settled not far from Leifsbudir at Mount Hope Bay. The 
strangers were soon visited by some of the natives, who are 
easily identified with the Esquimaux from the description 
given in the Saga. The relations maintained with these 
Skrellings were at first pacific. But the following year an 
act of brutality on the part of a Scandinavian led to war, and 
Thorfinn, although victorious, did not feel his position to be 
secure, and resolved to return to his country with his com- 
panions, his wife, and his son Snorre, the first Scandinavian 
born in Vinland. 

Before quitting his settlement, the chief was anxious to 
leave some trace of his presence. Such, at least, is the 
opinion adopted by Scandinavian savants, and by M. Gravier, 
on the subject of the famous Dighton Writing Rock. This 
block of gneiss, situated upon the right bank of Tauton 
River, and alternately covered and left bare by the tide, 
bears a certain number of characters engraved upon it to the 
depth of eight millimetres (one-third inch). This inscrip- 
tion, which has given rise to many discussions, has, probably, 
a double origin. Schoolcraft tells us that an old Indian, who 
was familiar with American pictography, recognized the 
hand of his countryman in a certain number of signs which 
he was able to explain, though at the same time he confessed 
that others were quite new to him. On the other hand, 
Magnusen and his followers have also only been able to 
interpret some of these same signs. They were, in their 
opinion, a mixture of runic and cryptographic signs, and 
of figures referring to the adventures of Thorfinn. They 
thought they could recognize Gudrida with her son Snorre, 



210 The Human Species. 

and the phonetic portion might, it seemed, be\ translated in 
the following manner : — 131 men of the &orth HAVE 
OCCUPIED THIS COUNTRY — WITH TIIORFINN. I should add, 
however, that Mr. Wittlesey does not admit the existence of 
a single alphabetical inscription in the United States. Yet 
we must not suppose that the opinion of the American 
antiquarian at all affects the authenticity of the Sagas which 
relate the history of Thorfinn. 

I cannot here repeat all the adventures of Thorvard and 
Freydisa, of Ari Marson, Bjorn Asbrandson, Gudleif and 
Hervador . . . . , but I must remark, in reference to 
the latter, that, through the indications contained in the 
Skalholt Saga, the American savants have been able to find 
upon the shores of the Potomac the tomb of a woman who 
fell by the arrows of the Skrellings in 1051. 

VII. The colonies founded in Greenland by Erick and his 
successors multiplied rapidly ; both the east and west coasts 
were peopled. These two centres bore the names of Osterbygd 
and Vesterbygd. From the documents consulted by M. R 
Lacroix, it appears that the former possessed a cathedral, 
eleven churches, three or four monasteries, two towns called 
Garda and Alba, and 190 Gaards or Norwegian villages; in the 
second, there were four churches and 90 or 110 gaards. These 
figures clearly indicate a considerable population. This is 
still more strongly proved by the fact, that as early as 1121, 
an Irishman, Erick-Upsi, was created Bishop of Greenland, 
and had eighteen successors. Vinland was in the jurisdic- 
tion of this diocese. The tithes of this country figured 
among the revenues of the Church in the fourteenth century, 
and were paid in kind. 

This prosperity, and the regular relations between Europe, 
Greenland, and Vinland seem to have lasted till towards the 
middle of the fourteenth century. About this time the 
Skrellings attacked Vesterbygd ; the succour sent by the 
other settlements arrived too late, and the western colony 
was destroyed. Osterbygd had a much longer existence. 
In 1418 it still paid to the Holy See as tithes and Peter's 



Migrations in America. 



211 



Pence 3G00 pounds of walrus' tusks. At a period anterior 
to this epoch, however, Queen Margaret, sovereign of the 
Scandinavian dominions, impelled by motives which have 
been differently interpreted, had interdicted all commerce 
with the Greenland colonies. Shortly afterwards fleets of 
pirates, springing from some unknown quarter, came down 
upon and pillaged them ; the temperature of both land and 
sea gradually fell ; voyages became more and more difficult, 
and, at last, ceased altogether. Thus, when in 1721, the 
Norwegian Pastor, Hans Eggede, led to those frozen lands 
the first modern colony, he found nothing but ruins, and not 
a single descendant of Erick and Thorfinn. What had be- 
come of them ? 

A letter addressed to Pope Nicholas V., quoted by 
M. Lacroix, throws some light upon their fate. It is dated 
1448, and informs us that, thirty years previously, some 
strangers coming from the American coasts had pillaged 
the colony, and massacred or carried into slavery the greater 
number of the inhabitants of both sexes. A great number 
had, however, returned to their homes, and asked for help. 

It is hardly possible to avoid referring to the latter, the 
white population, tall, and with fair hair, which Captain 
Graa met with on the east coast of Greenland, during his 
expedition in search of Osterbygd. Notwithstanding their 
adoption of the Esquimaux language, they certainly did not 
belong to their race. 

But were all the descendants of the bold navigators who 
had discovered America content to live, like the Skrellings, 
by the side of ruins which recalled the relative grandeur of 
their fathers ? This hypothesis appears to me inadmissible. 
It seems evident to me, that the greater number of the 
survivors must have emigrated and sought refuge in Vin- 
land, of the existence of which they were aware. Perhaps 
they were repulsed by the mixed population of Scandinavians 
and Esquimaux, who seem very early to have come into 
existence, and who were, perhaps, the invaders mentioned 
in the letter quoted by M. Lacroix ; perhaps, again, they 



212 The Human Species. \ 

may have encountered warlike and inhospitable tribes, like 
those mentioned in the Saga of Gudleif. But the Nor- 
wegians would then only have pushed on further, till they 
met with some hospitable shore where they could settle. 

VIII. However this may be, the history of Scandinavian 
voyages is sufficient to explain the appearance of the white 
type, even of the fair type, in the midst of American popula- 
tions. I do not hesitate to refer to this Aryan stock, the 
white Esquimaux of Charlevoix, the fair-haired men of Pierre 
Martyr, the fair men spoken of in some Mexican traditions, 
the White Savage Chief whom the Spaniards met with in 
their Cibola expedition . . . etc. 

Besides, the discovery and the repeated invasions of the 
American coasts by the Scandinavians show the estimation 
in which we ought to hold the pretended impossibility of the 
peopling of America. Here, we have no longer the double 
pirogues of the Polynesians, carrying 150 warriors ; it was 
in boats manned by thirty or forty men that Leif and 
Thorwald faced the Greenland seas, reached, and returned 
from Vinland. In the presence of such facts, can we regard 
our improved method of navigation as indispensable to long 
sea voyages ? 

Modern civilization has placed ia our hands an immense 
power of action unknown to our ancestors. It enables us to 
accomplish works which they would have thought could only 
be expected from supernatural powers. Science has placed 
in our hands the magic ring, and we have become so used to 
employing it for the satisfaction of our smallest wants, that it 
seems to us impossible to do without it. We too often forget 
the resources which man possesses in himself, and which form 
part of his original nature. Thus, we regard less advanced, 
less learned races as incapable of accomplishing that which 
we should not dare to undertake without the aid which we 
have been able to create for ourselves. 

We have just seen how fully the history of the Polynesians 
and Scandinavians contradicts these false ideas, and how they 
justify the words of Lyell : — " Supposing the human genus 



Migrations in America. 213 

were to disappear entirely, with the exception of a single 
family, placed either upon the Ocean of the New Continent, 
in Australia, or upon some coral island of the Pacific Ocean, 
we may be sure that its descendants would, in the course of 
ages, succeed in invading the whole earth, although they 
might not have attained a higher degree of civilization than 
the Esquimaux or the South Sea Islanders.'* 



BOOK VI. 

ACCLIMATISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

INFLUENCE OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND RACE. 

I. The human species, springing originally from a single 
centre of appearance, is now universally distributed. In 
their innumerable travels, its representatives have en- 
countered the widest difference of climate and the most 
opposite conditions of life, and now inhabit both the polar 
and equatorial regions. It must, therefore, have possessed 
the necessary aptitudes for accommodating itself to all the 
natural conditions of existence ; in other words, it must have 
had the power of becoming acclimatised and naturalised 
in every place where we meet with it. 

The possibility of man living and prospering in other 
regions than those in which his fathers lived, has been 
denied in a more or less emphatic manner by the greater 
number of polygenists. Without going as far as this, cer- 
tain monogenists have held that a human race, when con- 
stituted for given conditions of life, was, so to speak, a 
prisoner to them, and could not effect a change without 
losing his life. Other writers have maintained precisely 
opposite opinions, and have held that any human group 
could at once become acclimatised in any given spot. 

There are exaggerations and errors in all these extreme 
doctrines. 



Influence cf Conditions of Life and Race. 215 

II. la spite of the assertions of Knox, Frenchmen can 
live perfectly well in Corsica, provided only, that they 
avoid the marshes of the eastern coast, which the islanders 
themselves cannot inhabit. After the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, the fugitives from Provence and Lanome- 

' o © 

doc founded villages in the valley of the Danube," thus 
contradicting beforehand one of the assertions of the Eng- 

© © 

lish doctor. English and French emigrants to the United 

o © 

States, and to Canada, have not degenerated, in spite of 
the assertions of the same author. Though modified, often 
in a very striking manner, as we shall presently see, the 
Yankee squatters and the Canadian backivoodsmen are 
certainly not inferior to the first colonists who planted the 
European standard in the midst of the Red-Skins. 

Knox, and the anthropologists who agree either entirely or 
partially with him, attribute to emigration alone the main- 
tenance and growth of the white population in America and 
elsewhere. In their opinion the European emigrant loses, 
after several generations, the power of reproduction. If the 
human current, which sets from Europe towards the Colonies 
were to be stopped, they maintain that the population would 
rapidly diminish, and the local races regain the ascendancy, 
that the United States w r ould return to the Red-Skins, and 
Mexico to the descendants of Montezuma. 

This assertion will easily be answered by a few statistics. 
They are taken from the history of French races, which, 
since the treaty of Paris in 1763, have, although in a slight 
degree, directly contributed to the peopling of Canada. 
There were in this country : 

In 1814 . . 275.000 inhabitants of French origin. 
In 1851 . . 695,945 „ „ 

In 1861 . . 1,037,770 „ „ 

In Ottawa State there were : 

In 1851 . . Total population . . . lojOOO 

„ . . French .. . , 5,000 

In 1SG3 . . Total population . . . 25,000 

h . . French „ ... 15,000 



\ 

216 The Hitman Species. 

The history of the Acadians furnishes statistics which are 
quite as convincing. From the information obtained by M. 
Rameau, it appears that the entire population was descended 
from forty-seven families, numbering 400 souls in 1671. In 
1755 there were 18,000. Dispersed and driven out by the 
English they w r ere reduced to only 8,000. In 1861, the 
number rose to 95,000 persons. 

If we calculate from the preceding figures the annual in- 
crease of French populations in America, we shall find the 
ratio equal or superior to that furnished by the most 
favoured European populations. This proves that the 
French race shows no sign of disappearance, even in the 
country chosen as an example by Knox. 

Without entering into too many details, let us remember 
that the French have lived and increased in number at 
Gonstantia, not far from the Cape, since the revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes ; that this same region has been 
colonized by the Dutch, whose descendants, the Boers, have 
migrated, and now form the Transvaal Republic ; that they 
have been succeeded at the Cape by the English, who, by 
degrees, have overrun the whole country. We must also 
remember the rapid growth of the Anglo-Australian colonies, 
etc. ; and, finally, let us not forget those nine families of 
missionaries visited by M. de Delapelin in Polynesia, which, 
in all, numbered sixty-nine children, that is to say, a mean 
of more than seven and a half each, and we shall be forced to 
acknowledge that the most highly characterised European 
white can live and increase in number in both hemispheres, 
at the antipodes, and in the native countries of the most 
different races. 

Further, the great race to which he himself belongs was 
not originally European. It probably sprang from the moun- 
tain district of the Bolor and the Hindoo -koh, where the 
Mamogis still represent the original stock. In any case, the 
Zend-Avesta informs us that it issued from a region where 
the summer lasted but two months, a climate which almost 
corresponds to that of Finland. Step by step it advanced, 



Influence of Conditions of Life and Race. 217 

on the one hand as far as the Gangetic peninsula and Cey- 
lon, on the other to Iceland and Greenland. Afterwards, 
when the era of great discoveries had commenced, it dis- 
tributed its colonies over the whole world, peopling conti- 
nents, and replacing indigenous races. 

The consideration of these general facts alone, and the 
result of this perpetual activity, make it impossible to deny 
to the Aryan race the faculty of acclimatisation, under the 
most diverse conditions of existence. All the assertions of 
Knox, and of his more or less avowed disciples, fall before 
these facts. 

What is true for the Aryan race is equally true for the 
Negro. The White has transported the Black to almost 
every part of the globe, and in the most distant places the 
Black lives side by side with his master. Our -experience 
as to the Yellow Races is still slight, but we can already 
foresee that the result will be the same. Chinese and 
Coolies have passed over into America from Asia; we shall 
perhaps soon see them in Africa and in Europe. 

Certain branches detached from the great ethnical stocks 
have already offered similar evidences. The Gipsies, Aryans 
mixed, perhaps, with Dravidians, have overrun the whole of 
Europe, and are now met with everywhere. As to the Jews, 
we know that they are really cosmopolitan, and that almost 
everywhere, in Prussia as in Algeria, their fecundity sur- 
passes that of the local races. 

III. I do not mean by this that I consider the Aryan, or 
any races, capable of always becoming at once acclimatised 
in any given locality. On the contrary, there are regions 
which are fatal to man, to whatever group he may belong, 
and however well prepared he may seem to be to brave their 
influence. Such is the great estuary of the Gaboon, where the 
Negro himself cannot live. The general constitution of the 
inhabitants grows sensibly weaker ; the reproductive organs 
appear to be particularly affected, and the number of women 
greatly surpasses that of the men. We know how dangerous 
the climate of this country is to the European, and it will be 



2 1 8 The Human Species. 

interesting to see whether the Paouins will rn their turri 
yield to the deleterious influence of these coasts\which they 
are gradually approaching. 

We need not, moreover, go so far for examples. Who 
does not know the reputation of the Maremma, and the 
marshes of Corsica ? At one time the swamps of the Dombe, 
and the mouth of the Charente, in France, were scarcely less 
dangerous. 

Even where the conditions are much less severe, acclimati- 
sation almost always demands numerous and melancholy 
sacrifices, which some anthropologists have done wrong to 
overlook. The fact is but too natural. A race, which has 
settled under the influence of certain conditions of existence, 
cannot effect a change without undergoing modification, and 
hence suffering. This fact will be noticed in some detail 
in the chapter dedicated to the formation of these derived 
groups from the species. I can here only point out the 
general law. 

IV. Thus, every colonization of a distant country must be 
regarded in the first place as a conquest attempted by the 
immigrating race. Now, whether the battle has to be fought 
with man or with the conditions of life, the victory is only 
gained at the cost of human life. We must not, however, 
exaggerate the extent of inevitable losses, and deny the 
possibility of acclimatisation. We must put the problem 
clearly, and seek for experimental data., whence the solution 
may be naturally deduced. 

Every question of acclimatisation comprises two terms, 
which are, so to speak, the components of the resultant 
which we are seeking for or studying. These terms are race 
and conditions of life. We already know the exact significance 
of the former of these two words, and we shall presently 
consider in some detail what we are to understand by the 
latter. At present we will take it as simply representing all 
the conditions of existence presented by a given place, and 
proceed to point out its influence in acclimatisation. 

We have seen that certain conditions of life appear to be 



/ 

Influence, of Conditions of Life and Race. 219 

fatal to all races. In cases of this kind, we should distinguish 
how much of this insalubrity is due to the regions, and how 
much is the result of accidental circumstances, sometimes 
provoked by man himself. The plain of the Dombe in 
France was once as salubrious as the surrounding country. 
The exaggerated industry of the marshes transformed it into 
a pestilential region, where it was quite as fatal for foreign 
populations to live as it would have been in the swamps of 
the Senegal. Sanitary measures are now tending to restore it 
to its former condition. It is evident that we cannot reproach 
the Dombe with the deleterious influence which human 
intelligence seems to have undertaken to develop. 

Even when the latter does not step in to vitiate the con- 
ditions of life, we cannot charge a country with opposing 
unfavourable conditions to an indigenous or foreign race, 
when these conditions may be attributed to the negligence 
of the inhabitants, or to some special cause, which human 
intelligence might modify. Deprived of the care which 
rendered it healthy and luxuriant, the Campagna of Rome 
has become a branch of the Pontine Marshes. On the other 
hand, the environs of Rochefort have become healthy ; Bouf- 
farik, once one of the most dangerous spots in Algeria, has 
become the centre of a flourishing population. It was not, 
therefore, the general natural conditions which rendered these 
localities dangerous, especially to strangers, but simply acci- 
dent. As soon as the cause is removed, acclimatisation 
becomes not only possible, but easy. 

Considered from this point of view, many countries, which 
now appear to repel all attempts at immigration, will, perhaps, 
at some future period, be particularly favourable to the deve- 
lopment of colonizing races. It is clear that in all cases of 
this kind we must distinguish between normal and accident- 
ally vitiated conditions of life. 

I cannot enter into all the details which this distinction 
would allow, and shall confine myself to quoting a few 
facts. 

The very progress of civilization sometimes results in the 



220 The Human Species. 

vitiation of certain conditions of life. Such is the almost 
inevitable result of the crowding together of hirman beings 
in a relatively limited space. This is one of the points most 
clearly demonstrated in the statistical researches of M. Boudin 
upon the comparative mortality of the country and of barracks, 
for example. A comparison of our large towns and rural 
districts leads to the same result, and points to a special 
action upon the organs of reproduction. M. Boudin could 
not find a pure-blooded Parisian whose genealogy could be 
traced for more than three generations. At Besancon, town 
families become extinct in less than a century, and are re- 
placed by others from the country. London, I have been 
assured, presents a similar phenomenon. 

Do not ships, in which men live crowded together for 
months under very unsatisfactory sanitary conditions, deve- 
lop deleterious principles, to which the crews become accus- 
tomed by degrees, but which are, nevertheless, capable of 
producing the most serious affections in the midst of sur- 
rounding populations, which, till then, had been in a flourishing 
condition. Have we here one of those phenomena to which, 
according to Darwin, we must attribute the terrible mortality 
and increasing sterility of the Polynesian races ? Among the 
diseases introduced by European sailors, ought we not to 
reckon phthisis, which is said to have become epidemic, as 
well as hereditary, in those islands ? The probabilities seem 
to me to be in favour of an answer in the affirmative. Neither 
land nor sky have changed in these archipelagoes since the 
time of their discovery, and yet the Polynesian Islanders 
disappear with a terrible rapidity, whilst their mixed races 
and even pure-blooded Europeans show a redoubled fertility 
— a double contradiction given by facts to autochthonic 
doctrines. 

It is not always easy to determine, in judging of the more 
or less deleterious action of given conditions of life, what 
should be attributed to normal conditions, and what is the 
result of accidental vitiating elements. The soil, cold, heat, 
drvness, or humidity of a country are not all. The difference 



Influence of Conditions of Life and Race. 221 

presented from the point of view of acclimatisation by the 
two hemispheres is a striking example. 

The hot regions of the southern hemisphere are, as a rule, 
more accessible to white races than those in similar latitudes 
in the northern hemisphere. From 30 to 35 degrees of N. 
lat. we find Algeria, and especially the southern part of the 
United States, which present serious difficulties against our 
acclimatisation. In the same latitude of the southern hemi- 
sphere, lie the southern portion of the Cape and New South 
Wales, where all European races prosper almost immediately. 
M. Boudin's calculations give the differences exactly. He 
has found that the mean mortality of French and English 
armies was about eleven times greater in our hemisphere 
than in the southern hemisphere. 

Struck by this contrast, M. Boudin endeavoured to discover 
its cause, and found that it lay in the greater or less fre- 
quency and gravity of marsh fevers. North of the equator 
these fevers may be traced in Europe as far as the 59th deg. 
of latitude. In the south they rarely pass the tropics, and 
often cease at an even smaller distance. Tahiti, which is only 
18 deg. from the geographical equator, and almost beneath 
the thermal equator, is free from them. In the southern 
hemisphere, the mean annual number of cases of fever in the 
united English and French colonies was 1*6 in 1000; in the 
northern hemisphere it was 2 24 *9 in 1000. 

Thus, marsh fevers are almost 200 times more frequent to 
the north than to the south of the equator, although in South 
America and Australia, for example, vast tracts are covered 
with standing water under a burning sun. They are, more- 
over, of a far less serious nature in the southern hemisphere. 
The immense lagoons of Corrientes only occasion slight fevers. 
We know how dangerous, on the contrary, are those of the 
Pontine Marshes, which are situated at a much greater dis- 
tance from the equator. It would be much more difficult for a 
European to live in Italy upon the banks of the Carigliano, 
than in America upon those of the Parana. 

In spite of some experiments and ingenious theories, these 



222 The Human Species. 

differences between localities, apparently presenting almost 
identical general physical conditions, have not yet been ex- 
plained. The researches of M. Boudin, however, justify us 
in regarding these marsh miasmata as very probably the 
greatest and often the only obstacle to the acclimatisation of 
Europeans in the greater number of those places to which 
the spirit of enterprise has led them. There is something 
very encouraging and instructive in this fact. We know by 
what combination of circumstances these pestilential mias- 
mata are engendered ; we know how it is possible to resist 
them. Man can, then, wherever he may go, fight against 
nature, and at least somewhat ameliorate the conditions of 
acclimatisation. It has, until now, been impossible to make 
a whole country healthy in a short space of time. This was 
a work which time alone seemed to be able to accomplish, 
very often at a heavy cost of human life. It seems as if the 
introduction of the eucalyptus would, in a great measure at 
least, tend to diminish these sacrifices. 

Should, however, the tree brought from Australia by M. 
Ramel justify all our hopes, we shall find that some care 
must still be taken in the choice of station. I shall presently 
show how, in countries which are apparently most dangerous, 
there are circumscribed spots where acclimatisation takes 
place almost immediately. It is clear that new comers ought 
to look carefully for these favoured localities, and pitch their 
tents there. The contrary has almost always been, and still 
is, the case. They allow themselves to be seduced by the 
beauty and fertility of the alluvial lands situated at the 
mouth of some river, or upon the shores of some bay calcu- 
lated to facilitate commerce, without considering their un- 
healthiness. They settle down and build there, without being 
disturbed by the losses which overwhelm fresh arrivals ; and 
thus it is that pestilential flats, like that of Batavia, have 
become inhabited. 

V. I cannot here consider in any detail the action of con- 
ditions of life upon human races, without anticipating con- 
siderations which will be more appropriate in another chapter. 



Influence of Conditions of Life and Race. 223 

I shall only point out a very general fact, and one of great 
interest in the problem of acclimatisation. 

We know that the animal and vegetable races of one 
species, although in reality subject to the same influences, 
have, nevertheless, their special aptitudes ; and, more espe- 
cially, some affection which is very general in one will be 
very rare in another. The case is precisely similar with 
human races. 

Marsh fevers act in the same manner upon all men. The 
Negro suffers and dies from fever on the banks of the Niger, 
but in a much less degree than the White. Moreover, the 
two races, when transposed to India, preserve, in this respect, 
almost the same relations. Compared with local races, the 
Negro still retains the ascendancy ; he is everywhere the 
last attacked by malarious emanations. Born in a country 
where he is obliged almost incessantly and universally to 
breathe them, descended from ancestors, who from prehistoric 
times have lived in this poisoned air, he has become acclima- 
tised to it more than any other race ; on this account alone, 
he is able to prosper in places where the White would suffer 
for a long time. 

On the other hand, the Negro has a delicate chest, and no 
race is so subject to consumption, whilst this malady is much 
more rarely fatal to the White or to the Malay. 

From the extreme differences presented by the White and 
the Negro it follows that the general conditions of acclimatisa- 
tion are reversed in the two races. A moderately warm air 
which is impregnated with malarious emanations is danger- 
ous to the European. A moderate degree even of damp cold 
will be fatal to the Negro. 

These few facts are sufficient to show that the conditions 
of acclimatisation vary with the race ; that the same climate 
cannot exercise the same kind of action upon different races, 
and that complete acclimatisation, that is to say, naturalisa- 
tion, can only follow upon the harmony of these two terms — ■ 
race and conditions of life. 



CHAPTER XX. 

CONDITIONS OF ACCLIMATISATION. 

I. The possibility of establishing the harmony, of which I 
have spoken in the preceding chapter, has been denied. It 
has been argued that it must exist beforehand, and that 
instead of becoming acclimatised, people merely become 
accustomed to a given place. It will be easy to show from 
what takes place in animals and plants, that there is, in their 
case, something more than this, and that the organisation is 
sometimes modified in its most intimate relations so as to 
conform to the exigencies of conditions of life, which are by 
nature inflexible. 

The chrysanthemum (Pyretrum sinense), which adorns 
our gardens, came, as w T e know, originally from China. In- 
troduced into France in 1790, it nourished there and pro- 
duced fruit which it was unable to ripen, so that commerce 
alone supplied our flower gardens w T ith the necessary seed 
for more than sixty years. The attempt to rear it in hot- 
houses and frames met with very small success. In 1852 a 
few plants were observed to flower and to fruit sooner than 
the others ; the seeds ripened, and France now produces all 
the seed which she requires. A small number of accidentally 
precocious plants have, therefore, acclimatised this beautiful 
flower. 

The history of the Egyptian goose (Anser egyjptiacus) is 
still more striking. Brought to France in 1801, by Geoffroy 
Saint-Hilaire, this species at first laid in December, as in its 
native country. It reared its brood in the depth of winter, 
and consequently under very unfavourable circumstances. 
Several generations were, nevertheless, reared at the Museum. 



Conditions of Acclimatisation. 225 

Now in 1844 the birds laid in February, the following year 
in March, and in 1846 in April, the time at which our common 
goose lays. Is it not clear that the organisation of the 
Egyptian goose had accommodated itself to the conditions 
imposed by our climate? 

This marvellous faculty of living beings is sometimes even 
inconvenient. French vines when removed to the island of 
Bourbon yield grapes continually, so that the mixture of 
clusters in every stage of development and maturity has been 
a serious obstacle in the manufacture of the wine. Silk- 
Avorms have acted in a similar manner ; they have laid their 
eggs and spun their cocoons with perfect indifference as to 
the season of the year, and in such an irregular manner as to 
force breeders to give up rearing them. 

Acclimatisation, that is to say, physiological adaptation 
to new conditions of life, is an incontestable fact. All our 
domestic races which have been imported into America are 
prospering there. When the conditions of existence have 
been almost the same as those of their native country, they 
have changed bat little. When the new conditions have 
differed too widely from the old ones, local races have been 
formed ; and thus, though perhaps assisted by human in- 
dustry, pigs with fleece are to be found on the cold plateaux 
of the Cordilleras, sheep with, hair in the warm valleys of the 
Madeleine, and hairless cattle in the burning plains of 
Mariquita. Is it not clear that these pigs, sheep, and oxen, 
these descendants of our races in temperate climates, have 
established a harmony between themselves and the conditions 
of life? 

II. But, as I said before, this harmony is scarcely ever 
obtained without struggles and sacrifices. In this respect 
again man resembles plants and animals. Let us see, in 
the first place, what may be learnt on this subject from these 
beings of inferior organisation. 

It is well known that two kinds of wheat are recognised 
by agriculturalists, one of which is sown in spring and the 
other in autumn, both being reaped at about the same time. 



226 The Human Species. 

It is evident that the conditions of development are very 
different in the two cases. To sow a spring wheat in 
autumn, was, so to speak, changing the condition of existence, 
and, consequently, attempting an experiment in acclimatisa- 
tion. This was done by the celebrated Abbe Tessier. A 
hundred seeds of autumn wheat were sown in spring ; they 
all came up and produced young plants, which passed 
through the usual stages of vegetation. Only ten plants, 
however, formed seeds, which only ripened upon four plants. 
A hundred seeds of this first crop produced fifty fertile 
plants. In the third generation the hundred seeds produced 
corn. The inverse experiment gave similar results. 

The acclimatisation of wheat at Sierra Leone offers still 
more instructive peculiarities. The first year almost all the 
seed ran to leaf ; the ears were very few, and poorly filled. 
The seeds of this first crop were sown ; a great number did 
not come up at all. Those which survived were a little 
more fertile. Much patience was, however, required, and 
many generations passed before normal crops were obtained. 
We see that in Tessier's experiment all the seeds of wheat 
and their germs lived, but the grain was wanting, or was 
more or less abortive. There was, then, a loss of genera- 
tions. The same thing occurred at Sierra Leone. Moreover, 
the second time the seed was sown, some of it never came 
up at all. Here, therefore, the loss of individuals was added 
to that of generations. 

The history of our poultry which has been imported into 
America, presents equally significant facts. At Cuzco the 
broods are just as large as in Europe. Garcilasso de la 
Vega tells us, however, that in his time the eggs were few, 
and the chickens difficult to rear. The species has, since 
then, become acclimatised. 

When M. Eoulin made his observations upon the geese 
imported into Bogota, it was more than twenty years since 
they had been first brought to that high plateau, and, even 
then, they had not attained their normal fecundity. They 
were not,, however, far from it, while at first the eggs were 




Conditions of Acclimatisation. 227 



very rare. A quarter, at the most, of the eggs were hatched, 
and half the goslings died before the end of the first month. 
Thus, on the one hand, the Bogota breeder did not obtain 
nearly as many eggs as he would have done in Europe, 
while, on the other hand, at the end of a period scarcely 
equal to the two-hundredth part of the life of the goose, he 
obtained from these eggs scarcely one-eighth of what they 
would have produced in Europe. 

The history of these Bogota geese is most instructive. At 
the outset we meet with all those circumstances which would 
seem to justify us in the prediction of a failure. The 
infertility of the females, as attested by the rarity of the 
eggs, and that of the males, as shown in the strong propor- 
tion of addle eggs, point to a serious physiological injury to 
the organs whose action alone insures the permanence of the 
species. The enormous mortality among the young birds 
betrayed a no less serious alteration in the components of 
individual life. Nevertheless, at the time of M. Roulin's 
journey, acclimatisation had been almost realised, and must 
without doubt now be completed. 

More than twenty years were, however, necessary for the 
organisation of this European bird to establish a harmony 
between itself and the conditions of existence on the hisrh 
plateaus of America. The breeders were consequently forced 
to submit to many losses, affecting both generations and 
individuals. 

We see what took place in the case of the fowls and geese 
as well as in that of the wheat. Shortly after their emigra- 
tion the climate killed all those who were unable to conform 
to the new exigencies. A certain number offered sufficient 
resistance to live almost as long as they would have done 
under their natural conditions of existence ; but their 
weakened organisation was unfitted for generation, or could 
only produce beings which at once succumbed. Through 
all these disasters, however, a few privileged organisations 
conformed, from the first, more or less to the new exigencies. 
With slight modifications they transmitted their own 



228 The Human Species. 

acquirements combined with the suitable aptitudes to their 
progeny, who in turn made further advances in the direction 
opened by their parents ; and from year to year the adapta- 
tion was more complete, the acclimatisation more nearly 
realised. 

But it is evident that years here represent generations. 
It is only from parent to offspring, through heredity and 
accumulation, that the living being becomes modified, and by 
degrees harmonises with the conditions of life. When, how- 
ever, we are no longer studying an animal, plant, or a bird, 
which has the faculty of yearly reproduction, but species or 
races of a more tardy reproduction, we must remember that 
it is necessary to reckon by generations, and not by years. 

III. Such are the data by which we are enabled to judge 
of the attempts at acclimatisation made by man himself. I 
cannot too often repeat the fact that, in common with or- 
ganised and living beings, we are subject to all the general 
laws which govern life and organisation in animals and plants. 
Our intelligence is unquestionably of assistance to us in our 
struggles with nature, but, unfortunately, the power which 
we derive from her is limited, and in no case are we placed 
at greater disadvantage than in the increasing struggle de- 
manded by a considerable change in conditions of life. The 
most ingenious efforts are then unable to free man from 
vicissitudes more or less analogous to those suffered by the 
wheat of Sierra Leone, the fowls at Cuzco, and the geese at 
Bogota. 

We must, then, almost always be prepared for sacrifices, 
the extent and gravity of which will be proportionate to the 
differences, as regards conditions of existence, between the 
two countries, and we must almost always expect to lose a 
certain number of individuals and generations. Everything 
depends upon judging facts fairly, not exaggerating their im- 
portance, and seeing how far they justify a hope of success 
in spite of appearances. If the losses are merely equal to 
those I have just mentioned, or, better still, if they are fewer 
in number, we may prophesy a favourable result ; and, if the 



Cc/iditions of Acclimatisation. 229 

victory is worth the price, we must leave the rest to perse- 
verance and time. 

IV. Events in Algeria confirm these observations. After 
the conquest it was everywhere, as also in France, a question 
whether it would be possible to colonise the country taken 
from the Turks and Arabs. Dr. Knox declared most em- 
phatically that such a colonisation was impossible, and that 
the French would never be able to increase or even live in 
Africa. It must be confessed that this opinion found many 
and strong supporters. After the first few years of occupa- 
tion the generals, as well as the doctors, were almost all of 
the same opinion. M. Boudin supported, with distressing 
statistics, the views of his colleagues, Marshal Bugeaud and 
Generals Duvivier and Cavaignac. 

Relying upon what I know to have taken place with 
regard to birds, I did not hesitate to attack these discouraging 
prophecies. Military and civil mortality was in 1845 doubt- 
less much more considerable in Algeria than in France, and 
the number of deaths must again have exceeded that of 
births. But emigration was at that time abundant and 
continual. Now, if the influx of new arrivals filled the voids 
caused by the change in conditions of existence, it at the 
same time augmented the mortality by continually bringing 
forward recruits to this war against conditions of life. The 
rate of deaths amongst children was almost double that re- 
ported by French statistics ; but the proportion of deaths 
was still much less than that among the first geese at 
Bogota. Finally, far from having been weakened, the fer- 
tility of the women had increased ; the sources of life were 
therefore much less affected in this case than upon the high 
plateaus of America. 

From all these considerations, I felt justified in concluding 
that the acclimatisation of the French in Algeria was certain 
of success, and would not require twenty generations. My 
opinion has been corroborated by events much sooner than I 
expected. The census of 1870 showed in the European 
population of Algeria an increase of 2-5,000, due almost 



230 The Hitman Species, 

entirely to the superiority of the number of births over that 
of deaths. The action of the first generation born in the 
country began to make itself felt, and from that time the 
result has been still more striking. In two or three more 
generations the French Creole will live in Algeria quite as 
well as his ancestors have lived in France. 

There are, however, distinctions which, must be drawn 
with regard to the facility of acclimatisation in Algeria, 
between the different European races, and even between the 
inhabitants of the north and south of France. The statistics 
offered by MM. Boudin, Martin, and Foley show clearly that 
the Spaniards and Maltese stand the Algerian climate in- 
finitely better than the English, Belgians, or Germans. Now, 
the inhabitants of the north of France strongly resemble the 
latter nations in race and habits. In both these respects the 
inhabitants of southern France are connected, on the con- 
trary, with the inhabitants of Malta and Spain. We might, 
therefore, without much fear of error, prophesy that the 
latter had, either for themselves or their descendants, a 
much greater chance of surviving than the French of Al- 
satian and Flemish origin. Experience has again fully con- 
firmed these deductions of theory. 

V. The information which we derive from these facts 
taking place, so to speak, at our very doors, and among 
races with which we are very closely connected, may, with 
perfect justice, be applied to conditions of life more widely 
different in character, to races which are much more distinct 
from each other than the French and the Belgians. Never- 
theless, the conclusion so obtained would have the same 
value as that drawn from a general formula, the signification - 
of which changes with the data. When the question is one 
of acclimatisation, these data always rise from the two ele- 
ments mentioned above : conditions of race and life. If 
either vary, even though it be but slightly and within narrow 
limits, the result is necessarily altered, and often in a very 
unexpected manner. Every question of acclimatisation, in 
.reality then, forms a separate problem, which often, again, is 



Conditions of Acclimatisation. 231 

subdivided irito a number of particular cases, each of which 
demands a/ special solution. Without leaving the French 
colonies, we can quote on this subject another most striking 
example. 

Anthropologists, as well as doctors, have often questioned 
the possibility of the acclimatisation of Europeans in the 
archipelagoes of the great Mexican Gulf, which, through 
yellow fever and the influences by which it is developed, is 
particularly fatal to him. At first sight, it is true, a number 
of general facts seem to leave no doubt that the answer 
should be in the affirmative. Since the discovery of America 
Europeans have always occupied these islands, and the White 
race, bringing with it the Negro,- have everywhere replaced 
the Caribean race. In answer to this statement, it has 
been argued that these islands are one of the most favourite 
parts of the globe for emigration, and that by this means 
alone a population is maintained, which, if left to itself, 
would soon disappear. Calculations are opposed to calcula- 
tions, statistics to statistics, and w T ere we to approach the 
subject without analysing facts, the question would appear 
most obscure. 

To solve it in those cases only in which France is inte- 
rested, we will speak only of Guadeloupe and Martinique. 
We know that these islands were colonised by the French 
only 235 years ago. Even allowing the very liberal ratio of 
four generations to the century, we find that, at the most, 
ten generations have elapsed in these islands, the climate of 
which is of all others the most fatal to Europeans. Now, 
more than twenty generations were necessary to acclimatise 
the geese at Bogota. The experiment, therefore, is not com- 
plete. Nevertheless, in presence of the facts of longevity 
and fecundity attested by M. Simonot, we do not hesitate to 
share his opinions. Although the French race may not yet 
be acclimatised in Martinique and Guadeloupe, we may be 
certain that it soon will be. 

It is no less true that statistics attest an excess of deaths 
over births. The information which they furnish* has, how- 
11 



232 The Human Species. 

ever, been presented without distinction. Old and new 
Creoles have been mixed together, as well as\ the latest 
emigrants, in a common estimate. Elements, which are 
fundamentally very different have thus been confounded. 
For a work of this kind to have any real value, it is 
absolutely necessary to divide the population into classes 
determined by the time of emigration, and to estimate the 
length of time itself by the number of generations. By 
proceeding in this manner, we shall undoubtedly establish 
in the mortality of groups striking differences, more or less 
analogous to those displayed by the generations of plants and 
animals transported into Africa or America. 

The statistics in question are still further vitiated by a 
fault, which is completely exposed by M. Walther in his 
work upon Guadeloupe. He, also, has drawn up tables of 
mortality ; only, instead of taking the population en masse, 
he studied each district separately. Very significant dif- 
ferences then made their appearance. Considered as a whole 
the population of Guadeloupe offers an annual excess of 0*46 
deaths over births, that is to say, nearly one-half per cent. 
In presence of these facts, the statisticians whose views I 
am attacking, would certainly have concluded that the 
European is not acclimatised in Guadeloupe, and have 
declared, that, after a certain time, which might easily be 
calculated, this colonial population would become extinct, 
if the voids were not incessantly filled by fresh immigrants. 

When, however, we examine the table of mortality taken 
by districts, we arrive at very different conclusions. These 
districts number thirty-one. Now, in fifteen the number of 
births is greater than that of deaths. In the little island of 
Marie-Galante this is the case in two districts out of three. 
Thus, the terrible calculations of the mean mortality are due 
entirely to the exaggeration of mortality in certain districts, 
while the European has become acclimatised in the others. 

The tables of mortality drawn up in Algeria by M. Boudin 
present analogous facts. Out of sixty-nine localities, ffliy- 
five have shown, since 1857, an excess of births over deaths. 



Conditions of Acclimatisation. 233 

The general result obtained by M. Walther may be thus 
explained. r JThe French race is acclimatised in Guadeloupe 
in fifteen localities, but not in the remaining sixteen. Oi 
these two statements, the first should be considered as 
definitely proved ; the second requires confirmation, for a 
closer examination of the populations of the most unhealthy 
districts, and a study of them in classes, is still required. 

However this may be, every unprejudiced person will 
acknowledge that we can no longer question the fact of 
acclimatisation in Guadeloupe as a whole. It should now 
only be a question of acclimatisation at Basse terra, at 
Pointe-d-Pitre, at Pointe-JS T oire, etc. 

VI. The French Antilles, as also the greater number of 
the sister islands, are the scene of valuable experiments upon 
the aptitude of different human races to stand this excep- 
tional climate, which is one of the most difficult to overcome. 
The Negro was carried there by force very shortly after the 
occupation of the islands by the Whites, and has lived there 
in a state of slavery till within the last few years. As the 
condition of the parents was inherited by the children, there 
is little room for doubt, but that after a given time the local 
multiplication of the Blacks would have sufficed for all the 
wants of agriculture and industry, if the race had become 
acclimatised. The incessant activity of the slave trade, 
seems to show that the number of deaths must have greatly 
exceeded that of births. There appears to be no doubt as to 
the truth of the fact for the island of Cuba or for Jamaica. 
General Tulloch, struck by the mortality of the Negroes in the 
English Antilles, has not hesitated to declare that if the 
trade were once suppressed, the whole race would disappear 
in these islands before the close of a century. The researches 
of M. Boudin justify us in regarding this assertion as an 
exaggeration, at least as regards the French possessions. 

Neither the English nor the French author has, however, 
taken into consideration a circumstance, the importance of 
which cannot be denied. I allude to the conditions imposed 
upon the Negro by slavery. It is clear that the character 



234 The Human Species, 

and conduct of the master played an important part in the 
probability of the life or death of the slave. Without feeling 
himself to be, and without being inhuman, the master might 
demand more labour from him than his nature could support, 
or violate those instincts, the free play of which is necessary 
to health. This was certainly the case in Cuba, where it was 
the general practice to get as much out of the slaves as 
possible, thus creating the necessity for more frequent re- 
newal. We have here, doubtless, one of those causes by 
which the mortality of a race, better fitted than ours for 
intertropical climates, is so immoderately increased. Facts 
seem to justify these conjectures. "Since the abolition of 
slavery," says M. Elisee Beclus, "the Negro population has 
been on the increase in the English islands. 

However singular this fact may appear to some anthropo- 
logists, it is only a repetition of what took place in Brazil. 
There again, it was said, that the slave trade alone main- 
tained a black population, which was destined to diminish 
and disappear as soon as this enforced immigration should 
cease. Authentic documents show that the opposite has 
taken place. The slave trade was abolished long before 
slavery in this great Empire. For many years the pro- 
prietors, being unable to purchase fresh slaves, took care of 
those in their possession, and from that time the Negroes 
have multiplied. Thus it was that during the period in 
which the missionaries of the Jesuits flourished, that portion 
of the black race in which they were interested was observed 
to increase in an extraordinary manner, whilst in the rich 
haciendas, where it was uncared for and overworked, it 
dwindled away. 

By the side of the Negro Creole, there are now in the 
French Antilles labourers engaged more or less voluntarily 
from the same coasts of Africa, representatives of the Semetic 
white race from Madeira, Chinese of yellow race, and Indian 
coolies, who are almost all dravidian, and consequently a cross 
between the black and the yellow. It will be interesting at 
some future time, to show what resistance each of these 



Conditions of Acclimatisation. . 235 

nations has offered to the terrible climate they are con- 
fronting. The experiment is, at present, only begun. 
Nevertheless M. Walther has already obtained some inte- 
resting data at Guadeloupe. The mean annual mortality of 
the Creoles is 3'28 per 100 ; that of immigrants, 9'66 for the 
Chinese ; 7*68 for Negroes ; 7'12 for Hindoos ; and 5*80 for the 
natives of Madeira. Unfortunately, the statistics are doubt- 
ful, and differ from those which M. Du Hailly has given for 
Martinique. They must, however, both be recorded as the 
starting-point for new study. There is, moreover, no cause 
for despair. It is clear, for example, that the natives of 
Madeira will very quickly become acclimatised in Guade- 
loupe, as is already the case in Cuba, and the much more 
serious mortality of the Negro, Chinese, and Hindoo races 
does not prove the impossibility of their ever inhabiting these 
islands. 

VII. The conditions of life and the nature of the race are 
not all in the numerous problems raised by acclimatisation. 
Man, even individually, brings his special elements to bear 
upon it. The savage and the modern European are placed, 
by the mere fact of the social differences which separate 
them, in conditions often opposite, and not always in favour 
of the latter. 

Even the marvels of modern industry, whilst facilitating 
immigration into distant lands, make it more dangerous. 
Railways and steamers have reduced the longest journeys to 
a mere nothing. Lands, which it took our ancestors cen- 
turies to people, distances which our own fathers could only 
travel over in several months, are accomplished by us in a 
few days. We have here, then, yet another to be added 
to the many difficulties of acclimatisation. It is a common 
thing in Paris to hear men complain of the effects of a mere 
journey from Algiers. The rapidity of the transit gives a 
shock to the organisation, although tending to replace it 
under its natural conditions of life. The shock is necessarily 
greater when the journey is made in the other direction, and 
we go against our physical habits, instead of returning to 



V 

236 The Htunan Species .\ 

them. And, when after a few days' voyage, instead of 
Algiers, we land at Rio de Janeiro or the Antille<s, the shock 
must be great indeed. 

Modern civilisation is also answerable to a great extent for 
the losses involved by every settlement in a climate differing 
too widely from our own. By reason of the security with 
which she surrounds the poor as well as the rich, of the at 
least relative ease which is enjoyed by all classes of society, 
we are little prepared for the struggle for existence. Without 
going so far back as primitive man or the Aryans, let us 
simply call to mind Balbao, Pizarro, Cortez, Soto, Monbars, 
and their rough companions ; can the present generation offer 
such a resistance as theirs ? 

It is not, however, by its luxuries only that civilisation 
renders us unfit to confront the chances of acclimatisation. 
It is also, and principally, by the vices which too often 
accompany it. M. Bolot, who was in charge of a number of 
men employed for the construction of a pier at Grand 
Bassam, said to Captain Yallon: "A Sunday will put more 
of my men in the hospital, than three days of work in the 
full heat of the sun." This was because Sunday was given 
up to debauchery. 

Here, again, is a fact forming, so to speak, an experiment 
such as might have been imagined by a physiologist. The 
Isle of Bourbon passes for one of those disastrous climates to 
which the European cannot become acclimatised. The tables 
of mortality which relate to the whole population do, in 
fact, show that the deaths exceed the births to a formidable 
extent. This is, however, another of those sweeping results, 
into which we must inquire if we wish to understand its true 
meaning. 

The Whites of Bourbon form, in reality, two classes, or 
rather two races, distinct in their manners and customs. 
The former includes the population of towns and large 
settlements, who lead the ordinary life of colonists, and 
especially avoid agricultural labour, considered by Creoles as 
degrading as well as fatal. The latter includes the Mean 



Co flitions of Acclimatisation. 237 

Whites, descendants of the original colonists, who, too poor 
to buy slaves, were forced to cultivate the land with their 
own hands. 

Now, of these two classes of colonists, it is the former 
alone which supply the mortality to which attention is so 
often drawn. The Mean Whites live as their fathers lived ; 
they inhabit and cultivate the less fertile districts of the 
island. Far from having deteriorated, their race has im- 
proved, and the women, in particular, are remarkable for 
beauty of form and feature. The race maintains itself per- 
fectly, and seems to be on the increase. Crossing, moreover, 
has no influence in the matter, for the Mean White, proud 
of the purity of blood which constitutes his nobility, will not, 
at any price, ally himself with the Negro or Coolie. 

Thus at Bourbon, indolence, and the habits which it 
involves, destroy the rich, and those who try to imitate 
them, while the poor become acclimatised through sobriety, 
purity of manners, and a moderate amount of work. From 
the latter, anthropologists and all the world may learn a 
lesson of grave importance, at once scientific and moral. 

VIII. Finally, acclimatisation and naturalisation are as 
universal in history as migration, of which they are the 
consequence. We see them daily accomplished under our 
very eyes, and with the most different races, though almost 
invariably at the price of human life. In many places, they 
are purchased very cheaply, so much so, that study alone 
teaches us that new conditions of life in no case entirely lose 
their rights. In others, specially in countries characterised 
by an extreme climate, they involve considerable losses. 
But there is nothing to authorise us to deny the existence of 
acclimatisation and naturalisation. Everything, on the con- 
trary, proves that if they are willing to submit to the 
necessary sacrifices, all human races may live and prosper in 
almost every climate which is not vitiated by accidental 
causes. 

IX. In this case, as in many others, the present explains 
the past, which also contributes its share of information. 



o 



8 The Human Species. 



Relying upon our own daily experience, ant^ upon facts 
borrowed from history, we can form a general idea of the 
manner in which the world has been peopled. 

The history of the Aryan race alone, gives us, so to speak, 
that of the whole species. We see it starting from the Bolor, 
and Hindoo Koh, from the Eeriene Veedjo, where the summer 
only lasted two months, descending into Bokhara, and over- 
running Persia and Cabul before reaching the basin of the 
Indus. Eleven stations mark this route followed by the 
Aryans before reaching the Ganges. We there find them 
again slowly advancing, though all the time sending forth as 
a vanguard, those pious heroes, who slew the Rakchassas, 
and prepared the way for conquests. The race is now in the 
tropics in India, in the Polar circle in Greenland, where the 
Norwegians and Danes have replaced the Sea-Kings ; it 
spreads over an immense region of more or less temperate 
climate, and possesses colonies in every part of the world. 

The human species must have made a beginning like the 
Aryans. Upon leaving their centre of creation, it was by 
slow stages, that the primitive colonists, ancestors of all 
existing races, marched forth to the conquest of the un- 
inhabited world. They thus accustomed themselves to the 
different conditions of existence imposed upon them by the 
north, the south, the east, or the west, cold or heat, plain or 
mountain. Diverging in every direction, and meeting with 
different conditions of life, they gradually established a 
harmony between themselves and each one of them. Thus 
acclimatisation, advancing at the same rate as geographical 
conquest, was less fatal. The struggle, however, though 
mitigated indeed by the slowness of the advance, still existed, 
and many pioneers must have fallen upon the route. But 
the survivors had only nature to face, and, therefore, suc- 
ceeded, and peopled the world. 




/ 



BOOK VII. 

PRIMITIVE MAN.— FORMATION OF THE HUMAN 

RACES. 



CHAPTER XXL 



PRIMITIVE MAN. 



I. The primitive type of the human species must neces- 
sarily have been effaced, and have disappeared. The enforced 
migrations, and the actions of climate, must of themselves 
have produced this result. Man has passed through two 
geological epochs ; perhaps his centre of appearance is no 
longer in existence ; at any rate, the conditions are very 
different to those prevailing when humanity began its 
existence. When everything was changing round him, man 
could not avoid being changed also. Crossing, also, has 
certainly played its part in this transformation. I shall 
shortly return to these different points which I only allude 
to here. 

But, on the other hand, we shall see that the skull of the 
most ancient Quaternary race is repeated not only in some 
Australian tribes, but in Europe, and in men who have 
played an important part among their fellow-countrymen. 
The other races of the same epoch, judging from the skull, 
have many representatives amongst us. They have, never- 
theless, passed through one of the two geological revolutions, 
which separates us from our original stock. It is then not 
impossible that the latter may have transmitted to a certain 



240 The Human Species. \ 

number of men, perhaps scattered in time and^nace, at least 
a part of its characters. \ 

Unfortunately; we do not know where to seek for repro- 
ductions, bearing more or less resemblance to the primitive 
type ; and, for want of information it would be impossible to 
recognise them as such, if we were to meet with them. 
Here, therefore, observation alone can furnish no data. But, 
when it is aided by physiology, some conjectures are pos- 
sible. 

II. We know that among animals atavism often causes 
the reappearance of ancestral characters, even when a care- 
ful selection has acted upon hundreds of generations. The 
silkworms of the Cevennes which yield white cocoons, and 
the black sheep of Spain furnish examples. In man, where 
selection does not exist, such facts would be much more 
likely to be produced. Some characters of our first ancestors 
ought to appear in isolated cases or collectively in all human 
races ; perhaps, there are some which have been preserved 
in one or more groups. Consequently, by searching for 
them, and classifying those which appear in a more or less 
erratic manner among races which are most dissimilar in all 
other respects, we shall probably be able to form a partial 
reproduction of the primitive human type. 

In this respect, it is difficult to avoid attaching a real 
importance to the prognathism of the upper jaw. This 
anatomical feature is very pronounced in almost all Negro 
races : it is also strongly marked in certain Yellow races. 
It is considerably diminished among Whites : but, neverthe- 
less, it appears at times almost as strongly marked as in the 
two other groups: it existed in Quaternary man. Everything 
seems to indicate that it must have been as strongly 
developed in our first ancestors. 

Phenomena of atavism acting on the colouring are of 
frequent occurrence among animals. 

They are equally prevalent in the human species. This 
consideration causes me to attach real importance to the 
opinion of M. de Salles, who attributes red hair to the earliest 




Primitive Man. 241 

men. In fact/among all human races, individuals have been 
noticed who.se hair more or less approaches to this tint. 

The experiments of Darwin upon the effects of crossing 
between very different races of pigeons led to the same con- 
clusion. He found that the crossings resulted in the reap- 
pearance of certain peculiarities of colour in the mongrels, 
which were peculiar to the original species, and which had 
disappeared in the two parent races. Now in our colonies 
the offspring of a Mulatto and a White frequently has red 
hair. In Europe also, M. Hamy has remarked that children 
are born with red hair, when one of the parents is decidedly 
dark and the other decidedly fair. In all cases of this nature, 
we should say that the primitive character reasserts itself, 
being accidentally acquired by the reciprocal neutralisation 
of opposed ethnical characters. 

When examined under the microscope, the cutaneous pig- 
ment which gives the human body its characteristic colour, 
doubtless shows different tints, but yellow is always present 
as a colouring element. If we apply to man the laws which 
Isidore Geoffrey has deduced from his observations upon 
animals, we are led to conclude that this colour originally 
predominated. When the White is crossed with the Negro, 
the yellow colouring element at once asserts itself and gene- 
rally appears to predominate. In the colonies the general 
term of yelloivs is sometimes given to mulattos. This result 
is again explained by the experiments of Darwin ; and the 
conclusion is admissible that the original colour of man more 
or less approximated to this tint. 

Certain facts which have been observed among Negroes 
seem also to confirm this conclusion. Among the most 
strongly characterised peoples belonging to this type, the 
appearance has been noticed of individuals of a lighter 
colour, sometimes almost resembling the Whites in this 
respect, sometimes tending more or less to yellow, without 
presenting any of the phenomena of teratological albinism. 
These individual peculiarities of colour may be attributed to 
atavism. Now among no white or yellow race have facts 






242 The Human Species. \ 

been noticed which can be regarded as reciprocal to the 
preceding. 

Nothing therefore authorises us to regard the fefegro race 
as having preceded the other two ; and, on the contar}', the 
contrast which I have just pointed out leads to the conclusion 
that the ancestors of the negro were a race of a much lighter 
colour. 

On the other hand, we know that the Aryan race is the 
latest. The question of priority thus lies between the Semitic, 
the Allophylian, and the group of yellow races. What I have 
said above of the fundamental colour being present as an 
element in the colour of all races, and the phenomena of 
crossing, point with some probability in favour of the latter. 

Philology seems to confirm this view. Monosyllabic lan- 
guages, which imply the first attempts at human speech, only 
exist among the yellow races. All the Negro races and the 
Allophylian Whites speak agglutinative languages, which 
answer to the second form which man gave to the expression 
of his thoughts. Aryans and Semites both have inflectional 
languages. 

Philology then seems to lead to the same conclusion as 
physiology, and even to give an appearance of greater proba- 
bility to these conjectures, which I only give for what they 
are worth. 

III. We know nothing of primitive man ; we acknowledge 
that, from want of information, it would be impossible to 
recognise him. All that the present state of our knowledge 
allows us to say is that, according to all appearance he ought 
to be characterised by a certain amount of prognathism, and 
have neither a black skin nor woolly hair. It is also fairly 
probable that his colour would resemble that of the yellow 
races, and his hair be more or less red. Finally everything 
tends to the conclusion that the language of our earliest 
ancestors was a more or less pronounced monosyllabic one. 

These are only conjectures, and they amount to but little, 
but this little is founded upon experiment and observation. 

IV. We can also only form very vague conjectures upon 




Primitive Alan. 243 

the degree o'Xintellectual development which man exhibited 
at his birth and during his first generations. At any rate it 
is possible/' to believe that he did not enter upon the scene of 
the world with innate knowledge, and the instinctive indus- 
tries which belong to animals. Still less did he appear in a 
fully civilised state "mature in body and mind" as thinks 
the Comte Eusebe de Salles. All traditions point to a period 
when human knowledge was very small, when man was 
ignorant of industries, to our eyes very elementary, and which 
we see appear in succession. Upon this point the Bible 
agrees with classical mythology. The Hebrews have their 
Tubal Cain, and the Greeks their Triptolemos. Prehistoric 
studies confirm this progressive development in Western 
Europe upon every point. Tertiary industries precede qua- 
ternary. The whole history of races seems to me to give, at 
least in part, a representation of that of the Species; and 
our thoughts go back almost irresistibly to the time when 
man found himself face to face with creation, armed solely 
with the aptitudes which were destined to undergo such a 
marvellous development. 

Thanks to these aptitudes, at a very early period he satis- 
fied at least the first wants of existence. The miocene man 
of La Beauce already knew the use of fire and worked flint. 
However rough and rudimentary his instruments may have 
been, he had even then an industry, and according to all ap- 
pearance fed partly upon cooked food. The man of Saint- 
Prest, with his small lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, worked only 
on one side, with his rough hatchets, could undoubtedly attack 
and kill the great contemporary mammalia. He possessed 
scrapers which he used to prepare their skins with, and aivls, 
which perhaps served as needles. From this distant period, 
upon which science has thrown as yet but little light, man 
reveals his existence by two great facts, and shows his supe- 
riority to the whole animal creation. 




CHAPTER XXII. 

FORMATION OF HUMAN RACES UNDER THE SOLE INFLU- 
ENCE OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND HEREDITY. 

I. The first men who peopled the centre of human appear- 
ance must at first have differed from each other only in indi- 
vidual features. At their beginning and during an indefinite 
lapse of time, mankind could only have been homogeneous, 
as is every animal and vegetable species which is restricted 
to an area of small extent. 

At the present time, we find mankind composed of nume- 
rous groups, which have peculiar characters, and constitute 
so many distinct races. How have these races originated ? 
and how have they grown and multiplied ? 

To give a definite reply to these questions, by going back 
from recent effects to first causes, is still impossible, and per- 
haps will always be so. Nevertheless, science may even now 
approach the general aspects of the problem. We are well 
acquainted with the circumstances under which varieties 
originate and races are formed among plants and animals : 
we have established in man the occurrence of a number of 
phenomena, which are in this respect identical, or very 
similar to those exhibited by the two inferior kingdoms. We 
are therefore clearly authorised to apply inferences drawn 
from them to ourselves, connecting particular with general 
facts. This study is instructive in many respects. Unfor- 
tunately, we cannot fully enter upon it here ; we can only 
select some facts in the history of animals to justify our 
conclusions. 

II. The problem of the formation of human races presents 
two very distinct cases. Man at first was subject to the sole 



Action of (ynditions of Life and Heredity. 245 

» 

action of natural modifying agents. Under this influence 
pure races were formed. When these races came in contact, 
they were trossed ; this resulted in the formation of mixed 
races. Without being antagonistic to the natural forces, 
crossing modifies them by its peculiar phenomena, and some- 
times masks their manifestations. The two cases, there- 
fore, require separate examination. We will begin with the 
first. 

III. Every organic species considered as a whole appears 
to be subjected to the action of two forces, one of which tends 
to maintain and the other to modify its characters. To 
what cause can this double action be referred ? This is a 
question put by the greatest thinkers and the most eminent 
physiologists, from Aristotle and Hippocrates to Burdach and 
J. Muller. 

It is not the resemblances existing between the members 
of the same species, or between the members of one family, 
which perplex philosophers : all agree in referring them to 
heredity. The problem lies rather in the differences. Not 
only in the considerable differences which are established 
between races ; but more especially in the shades constituting 
the individual traits which distinguish father from son, or 
brother from brother. This is in reality the fundamental 
difficulty, and many hypotheses have been proposed for its 
solution. Prosper Lucas, after having discussed them sepa- 
rately, regarded them all as insufficient, and believed that, 
side by side with heredity, which maintains types, we ought 
to admit a special force, innateness (Vinneite) which diver- 
sifies them. 

We can, however, account for the double tendency ex- 
hibited by living beings, without having recourse to a new 
force. For this purpose it is sufficient to push the analysis 
of phenomena a little further than is customary, and to 
obtain a clear idea of the part played by the conditions of 
life {milieu) and heredity. As a general rule'' an action is 
attributed to the first, which everywhere and at all times is 
a modifying one, and to the second a purely conservative 



246 The Human Species. 

action. Now it may be easily shown that tK* 8 is n °t the 
case ; and that each of these causes acts in an inverse manner 
according to circumstances. 

IV. By virtue of the laws of heredity, the father and 
mother tend equally to transmit to their offspring their own 
character. However similar they may be supposed to be, 
there are always some differences between them ; and the 
nature of the new being is necessarily a compromise between 
two different tendencies. The son cannot, therefore, always 
resemble his father exactly. In him the characters common 
to both parents will easily be exaggerated ; the opposite 
characters will be neutralised • and the different characters 
will produce a resultant, as distinct from the two components 
as green is from yellow and blue. Thus even by virtue of 
its own tendencies, and in consequence of the enforced co- 
operation of the sexes, direct and immediate heredity 
becomes, in some respects, a cause of variation. 

Mediate and indirect heredity; justly compared by Bur- 
dach to geneagenetic phenomena, as well as atavism, which 
suddenly reproduces with great exactness the characters of 
an ancestor, sometimes after hundreds of generations, have 
certainly considerable influence in the variation of individual 
traits, and in the differences which distinguish parents from 
their children. 

Their action, added to that of direct heredity, is sufficient 
to explain the appearance of certain varieties, without 
appealing to innateness. 

V. But the hereditary force, although it is manifested from 
one generation to another, or through several generations, is 
always influenced by the conditions of life (milieu), and this 
has evidently greater farce. 

This term ought to be taken in a much more general sense 
than is usually the case. Buffon himself only took into 
account climate, varying quantities of food, and the hardships 
of servitude, when he was treating of domestic animals. I 
understand by the conditions of life something much more 
complex. They comprehend the sum of all the conditions 



Action of ( Conditions of Life and Heredity. 247 

under whose ?/iay a plant, an animal, or man, is formed and 
grows as gerJn, embryo, youth, and adult. To make a selec- 
tion from these conditions, to admit some and take them into 
consideration, to reject and exclude the rest, is evidently an 
entirely arbitrary procedure. The consideration of only a 
certain period of life, the neglect of the whole intra-ovarian 
or intra-uterine period, deserves the same reproach. From 
this point of view, the existence of a being cannot be severed, 
any more than the conditions of life under whose rule this 
existence is accomplished. 

A number of cases do away with all doubt as to the action 
of the conditions of life upon the germ, or upon the embryo, 
however much it may appear to be protected by the en- 
velopes of the ovum, or by the tissues of the mother. The two 
GeorTroy Saint-Hilaire have clearly proved that monstrosity 
dates from the earliest stages of the formation of the being, 
and indicates in certain cases the external causes which have 
produced it. The experiments of M. Dareste have confirmed 
and enlarged in a singular manner these first conclusions, 
while giving them greater precision. By mixing madder 
with the food of a female mammal, Flourens produced a red 
colour in the bones of the foetus. By placing the eggs of 
a salmon-trout in waters which only nourished white- 
trout, Coste noticed the eggs become gradually paler, and 
produce trout which had lost the characteristic colour of 
their race. In order to increase the height of our excellent 
small horses of the "camargue " race, it is sufficient to give 
the mare during the period of gestation a more plentiful 
diet than that to which she is accustomed in her half- wild 
state. 

Thus it is established in the clearest manner and by exact 
experiments that the conditions of life, when acting upon 
the embryo during the intra-uterine or intra-ovarian part of 
its existence, are capable of producing either the gravest 
teratological disorders, or simple and slight deviations. We 
are, therefore, clearly justified in attributing to the same 
cause modifications which are placed between these extremes 



\ 

248 The Human Specie s\ 



according to their importance. To invoke innb^mess, in order 
to explain their appearance, is obviously superfluous. We 
shall connect, therefore, with actions of this kind the appear- 
ance of the first spineless Acacia of which we ha\\e spoken 
before, of the first Ancon sheep in Massachusetts in 1791, 
that of the first Mauchamp sheep in France in 1828, etc. 

The Ancon and Mauchamp races are only propagated by 
human industry. But these sudden deviations from a given 
type can also extend and multiply their numbers by them- 
selves. It is well-known that South American oxen are 
descended from a horned Spanish race. Now, in 1770, a 
hornless ox was produced in Paraguay. In several years, 
according to d'Azara, this exceptional form had, as it were, 
invaded several provinces. Nevertheless, the race is far from 
being in favour, because the absence of horns renders it less 
liable to be caught by the lasso, so that its destruction was 
attempted. It was, therefore, evidently propagated spon- 
taneously. 

Whoever has the smallest acquaintance with embryogenesis 
will have no difficulty in understanding that conditions of 
life act especially upon organisms in respect to their forma- 
tion and evolution. However, their influence upon an 
animal, even when full-grown, is sometimes quite as marked. 
Our sheep, when transferred to America, generally become 
acclimatised without undergoing great changes. Their fleece, 
particularly, is retained. But in the plains of the Meta it is 
only retained on condition of the sheep being regularly shorn. 
If they are left to themselves, the wool becomes of a felty 
nature, is detached in flakes, and is replaced by a short, stiff, 
and shining hair. Under the influence of this burning 
climate, the same individual becomes in turn a woolly and a 
hairy animal. Now, innateness, as Prosper Lucas conceives 
it, cannot be appealed to in the case of changes undergone 
by a full-grown animal, whilst the action of conditions of life 
is here incontestable. 

VI. We have just pointed out how heredity and conditions 
of life can give rise to a variety. Now, the individual which 



Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 249 



has commence 1 to deviate from its original type becomes in 
its turn a pjjrent ; it tends to transmit to its offspring the 
exceptional characters which distinguish it. The same facts 
are repeated in its offspring; and, at each generation, the 
actions of the conditions of life are added to each other. 
Thus every time heredity transmits the sum of these actions 
to the following generation. The faintest modification 
increased from father to son sometimes leads to most marked 
changes. Our European oxen, in the hot plains of Mariquita 
and Neyba gradually lost their hair, at first became pelones, 
and would soon have formed an entirely naked race, if the 
calongos had not been regularly killed. Again, pigs which 
have become wild in the Paramos have acquired a kind of 
wool under the action of a continuous, but not excessive cold. 
The Guinea dog and the Esquimaux dog present an analogous 
contrast between races of the same species. 

In the preceding examples, and in many others which 
must be omitted, the actions in question modify organisms 
in order to place them in harmony with the conditions of 
life. Now it is intelligible that when the maximum of pos- 
sible effect has once been attained, they can only fix the 
result obtained more fully, but can never determine a change 
in the opposite direction. The heat, which has by degrees 
deprived calongo cattle of their hair, will never restore 
it again ; and the cold which has made our pigs woolly, 
will never deprive them of wool. Here, then, we find con- 
ditions of life acting as an agent of preservation and 
stability. 

VII. In the preceding passage allusion has been made to 
natural forces left to themselves. It is to them that the 
formation is due of the wild races of all the species whose 
geographical area is very extended, such as the fox, jackal, 
lion, etc. 

These races are sometimes so different that they were 
regarded as distinct species, as long as the intervening geo- 
graphical and zoological terms were unknown. Frederick 
Cuvier himself made this mistake in the case of the jackals 



\ 



250 The Hitman Species. 

of India and those of the Senegal. Wild races\;ave, however, 
never been so numerous or so distinct from e\ch other as 
domesticated races. 

Are we to infer from this that man exercises around him- 
self and of himself a kind of magnetic action, as some authors 
seem to admit ? Certainly not. In reality, he only acts 
upon an animal by setting in action, sometimes intentionally, 
sometimes unintentionally, the two agents which, hitherto, 
we have met with everywhere, conditions of life and heredity. 
By the single fact of domestication, by the confinement which 
is almost always the result of it, he changes entirely the 
natural conditions of existence. By leading in his train the 
animals which he has enslaved, he diversifies still more the 
, influences which act upon them. Prompt to seize every 
means of rendering them most useful, he profits by the 
smallest modifications which show the least advantage, 
pushes them to their utmost limits and produces the extreme 
races, of which our exhibitions of animal races give such 
curious examples. 

The chief means which man uses for the attainment of 
these results, which at times seem to border on the marvellous, 
is selection. Ever since he has possessed domestic animals 
he has marked out among them individuals which are better 
adapted than the rest to his intentions. By some kind of 
instinct, or unconsciously, as Darwin says, he has chosen 
them to breed from. By rejecting the types which he 
considers inferior, and only employing the higher types 
wherewith to propagate the species, he has directed the 
action of heredity in a definite direction, and has readily 
created races. Now, man has acted in this manner since the 
times spoken of in Genesis and by Chou-King, that is, for 
thousands of years. Is it then surprising that he should 
have multiplied around him hereditary forms which are 
more or less distinct from the primitive types ? 

Progressive selection would doubtless lead to numerous 
and varied results. Would it allow of the creation of races 
whose characters almost reach hemitery? The answer to 



/ 

Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 251 



tins questior/^s at least doubtful. But we have not to ask 
it. When Vy one of the actions of the conditions of life, 
whose origin remains obscure, an almost teratological animal 
form is produced, it soon disappears by the mixture of blood 
from different sources, if unions are left to chance. This is 
the reason why analogous facts are not observed in feral 
races. But if this form appears in a domestic animal, if it 
answers to any want or caprice, selection intervenes, preserves 
it, and multiplies it. This explains the origin of the Ancon 
sheep, which were all descended from a single ram of which 
we have spoken above ; also the means by which M. Graux 
de Mauchamp has raised his race of sheep with silky fleeces 
from a single ram. These two examples show how all those 
peculiar races have been obtained, which in some of their 
characters seem to clash with the very type from which they 
were derived. In the canine species the beagle corresponds 
to the Ancon sheep; the niata cattle, which have appeared in 
South America since its conquest, correspond to the bull-dog, 
etc. 

VIII. Races, when once formed under man's influence, are 
fixed by the same causes which produced them. Their 
characters, which at first were entirely artificial, become 
more and more fixed, so much so, that even a very consider- 
able change in the conditions of existence, never effaces them 
entirely. The acquired nature is, so to speak, w r elded to the 
original nature of the being. 

This is a fact not generally recognised by naturalists and 
anthropologists who have touched upon these questions. For 
instance, it has been admitted as proved that domestic races, 
when they have returned to the feral state, reassurrie all the 
original characters of the species. This is a mistake. The 
fact is, that both with animals and plants, escaped races 
lose a certain number of characters, and frequently the 
most apparent ones, which they owe to domestication ; they 
reassume others which they had lost during their period of 
servitude, but the former are more frequently only diminished 
and masked by the latter. If fruit-trees escaped from our 



\ 



252 The Human Species. 

orchards, if our horses, dogs, cattle, and pigs, w^aen they have 
become wild, had really reassumed the original ctype of the 
species, they ought to present in every area whicfc they in- 
habit the marked uniformity characteristic of animals who 
were never subject to man. This is not the case.N They 
ought in particular to preserve no trace of their acquired 
characters. Now, the latter are partly persistent. Vans Mons 
has found apple-trees and pear-trees of Belgium, in a wild 
state, in the forest of the Ardennes. The prickles had 
reappeared, the fruit had become small and bitter again, but 
the principal cultivated varieties were still to be recognised. 
I have established an analogous fact with regard to cling- 
stone and free-stone peach-trees in a valley of the Cevennes. 
Similarly Martin de Moussy has recognised in the troops of 
dogs which have become wild in America, all the chief races 
from which they had been derived, although they reassumed 
the general characters of the tan-coloured type. 

IX. From the number of observations which have been 
collected among plants and animals, and of which I can only 
notice a small number, it is easy to understand the appear- 
ance and multiplication of human races, and to account for 
certain general facts, some of which are closely connected 
with our history. Let us state at starting that with man, 
as with animals, varieties have appeared at times which 
may be classed among hemitery. Individuals, exhibiting 
from their birth exceptional characters, are none the less 
healthy, and sometimes have very remarkable power of 
transmission. Edward Lambert, born in 1717 of perfectly 
healthy parents, had all his life a kind of carapace more than 
an inch thick, and irregularly fissured, which gave him the 
name of the porcupine man. All his children, to the number 
of six, and his two grandchildren, inherited this strange modi- 
fication of the skin, although his wife and his daughter-in-law 
did not show the least trace of it. In the Colburn family, 
four generations were marked with polydactylism which was 
derived from the grandmother of the great calculator. At 
the fourth generation, four children out of eight still had 



Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 253 

s u pern u me ran f fingers, though at each generation normal 
blood was m'ted with the teratological blood. 

Evidently, if the descendants of Lambert and Colburn had 
been treated like those of the first Ancon or Mauchamp 
sheep, two human races would have been obtained, one 
characterised by a cutaneous carapace, and the other by the 
possession of six fingers. But here selection was wanting, 
and the exceptional blood, from being diluted at each fresh 
marriage, did not fail to be rapidly exhausted. 

X. Man does not subject himself to the selection, which 
he applies with so much success to animals and plants. In 
his species, therefore, the extreme variations which are 
obtained elsewhere are not produced. It is thus easily 
explained why the limits of variation are not so extensive 
with man as with domesticated or cultivated races. But if, 
for some motive or other, he were to apply the process of 
selection to himself, we should not have to wait long for 
the result. By marrying the tallest women to the giants of 
their guard, Frederick William and Frederick II. had created 
at Potsdam a real race distinguished for its tall stature. In 
Alsace a Duke de Deux-Ponts, who imitated the Prussian 
sovereigns, obtained the same result. 

There is another cause which contributes powerfully to 
restrict the limits of variation in man, namely, the power 
which his intelligence gives him of partly escaping from the 
effects of the conditions of life. He is always struggling, as 
much as he is able, against the external influences capable of 
disturbing the equilibrium which constitutes his well-being. 
In the tropics, he uses contrivances for avoiding the heat ; ia 
the polar circle, he perfects his means of heating ; if he 
emigrates, he carries with him, as far as he can, his manners 
and customs, and struggles with redoubled care against the 
new conditions of life. There is nothing strange in finding 
him successful in neutralising to a certain extent the modifying 
influences of the external world. 

XL Nevertheless, the conditions of life do not surrender 
their rights ; although diminished, their action is none the 



254 The Human Specie\ 

less real. This is a fact which can be aft^med by what 
occurs in our great western colonies. Each gk<gat European 
race is there represented by derived sub-races \which vary 
according to the locality. The islands in the Gulf pf Mexico, 
North and South America, and Australia itself, which has 
been so recently colonised, have at this time their own 
peculiar races, some of which are remarkably characterised. 

Since I am unable to treat in detail all these facts of 
transmutation, I will only notice some of the facts which 
have been established in the United States. We know that 
the English race was only definitely settled there at the time 
of the Puritan emigration, about 1620, and from the arrival 
of Penn in 1681. Two centuries and a half, twelve genera- 
tions at the most, separate us from this epoch, and neverthe- 
less, the Anglo-American, the Yankee, no longer resembles 
his ancestors. The fact is so striking that the eminent 
zoologist, Andrew Murray, when endeavouring to account for 
the formation of animal races, finds he cannot do better than 
appeal to the condition of mankind in the United States. 

The subject, moreover, is not wanting in precise details, 
which are vouched for by a number of travellers, by 
naturalists, and doctors. At the second generation the 
English Creole in North America, presents, in his features, 
an alteration which approximates him to the native races. 
Subsequently the skin dries and loses its rosy colour, the 
glandular system is reduced to a minimum, the hair darkens 
and becomes glossy, the neck becomes slender, and the size 
of the head diminishes. In the face, the temporal fossae are 
pronounced, the cheek-bones become prominent, the orbital 
cavities become hollow, and the lower jaw massive. The 
bones of the extremities are elongated, while their cavity is 
diminished, so much so, that in France and England gloves 
are specially made for the United States with exceptionally 
long fingers. Lastly, in the woman, the pelvis, in its propor- 
tions, approaches to that of the man. 

Are these changes signs of a degeneration already ac- 
complished, and of an approaching extinction, as Knox 



/ 
Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 255 

asserts? I , think a reply to this assertion is hardly 
necessary. We are sufficiently acquainted with American 
men and women to know that, although modified, the 
physical /type is not on that account lowered in the scale of 
races ; /and the social grandeur of the United States, the 
marvels they have accomplished, the energy with which they 
pass through the rudest crises, prove that from every point of 
view, the Yankee race has retained its rank. It is simply 
a new race, formed by the American conditions of life, but 
which remains worthy of its elder sisters in Europe, and will 
perhaps some day surpass them. 

The Negro transported into the same countries has also 
undergone remarkable changes. His colour has paled, his 
features have improved, and his physiognomy is altered. " In 
the space of 150 years," says M. Elise'e Reclus, " they have 
passed a good fourth of the distance which separates them from 
the whites, as far as external appearance goes." Lyell's 
opinion is almost the same. Moreover, when visiting two 
Negro churches, at Savannah, he remarked that the odour so 
characteristic of the race was scarcely appreciable. A long 
medical experience at New Orleans has shown Dr. Visinie' 
that the blood of the Negro Creole has lost the excess of 
plasticity which it possessed in Africa. With MM. Reiset, 
de Lisboa, etc., with even Nott and Gliddon, let us add that, 
while the physical type has undergone modification, the 
intelligence has improved, and we shall have to recognise 
that in the United States a sub-Negro race has been formed, 
derived from the imported race. 

XII. Thus the European White and the African Negro, 
when under the influence of new conditions of life, have 
both undergone modification. Moreover both, according to 
M. Reclus, whose statements are confirmed by those of M. 
L'abbe' Brasseur de Bonbourg, approximate to the indigenous 
races. Both of these authors seem to admit that at the end 
of a given time, whatever be their origin, all the descendants 
of Whites or of Negroes who have immigrated to America will 
become Red-skins. 
12 



256 The Human Species. 




When two such intelligent observers arrive set an identical 
and certainly quite unexpected conclusion on sucl* a question, 
the facts must be very patent. Yet they have forced their 
meaning, from not having taken sufficient account of the 
nature of the problem. That the Negro and the ^ White 
should replace some of their features and characters b^ .some 
of the features and characters belonging to the indigenous 
races, is quite natural. When subject to the action of the 
conditions of life which have formed the local races, they 
could not help being influenced by it to a certain extent. 
But they will never on that account be confused with the 
local races nor with each other, any more- than the White 
transported to Africa would ever become a true Negro, or 
the European descendants of a Negro would ever become true 
Whites. 

This impossibility of one race being transformed into 
another is often brought forward as an objection against 
Monogenism. It is nevertheless the natural consequence of 
the phenomena, of which I have endeavoured to give a short 
account, and is easily explained. Every race is a resultant 
whose components are, partly the species itself, partly the 
sum of the modifying agents which have produced the devia- 
tion from the type. We cannot separate those two elements, 
and races which have run wild show us to what extent the 
fusion can go. Every race which is fixed, when brought 
under the conditions of life which have formed another, will 
doubtless approximate to the latter ; but it will partly retain 
its former impress, as the fruit-trees of Van Mons and the 
wild dogs of Martin de Moussy have done. 

Such is what would take place even among primary races 
directly detached from the primitive type, and which have 
only been subject to the action of one fixed condition of life. 
But with the Negro and the White, the question is much 
more complex. These two extreme types represent the last 
product of two series of long-continued actions, whose diversity 
and multiplicity are indicated by the geographical stations 
themselves. Europe and tropical Africa have given them, if 



Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 257 

the expression may be used, the last touches ; but their out- 
line was sketched out long before they reached their present 
habitat, rjy their transposition, we only submit each of 
them to a part of the influences which have formed the other, 
and consequently a complete exchange of characters could 
never take place. 

XIII. Without denying absolutely the influence of the 
conditions of life upon man, most polygenists refuse to admit 
that they have the power of producing new races. To sup- 
port their statements, they appeal to the persistence of 
certain types for a considerable lapse of time, and insist most 
strongly upon certain facts derived from Egypt. On this 
latter point I readily agree with them. It is quite true that 
pictures and Egyptian sculptures point to the existence in 
the valley of the Nile of a type, or rather types, which are 
remarkably uniform ; and whoever has visited these countries 
has certainly been struck, as I was, with the great re- 
semblance of the peoples of the present to those of the past. 

But what reasons are there why the inhabitants of the 
valley of the Nile should change ? What cause, except inter- 
crossing, could determine any modification in their physical 
characters ? In this region, which is exceptional in so many 
respects, nothing has changed since historic times, neither the 
earth, the sky, nor the river ; habits, customs, and daily life 
have remained as they were in the time of the Pharaohs ; 
the Egyptian even uses implements in our days, which are 
exactly like those which were used fifty or sixty centuries 
ago by his ancestors. 

In Egypt, all the conditions of existence, and, consequently, 
the actions of the conditions of life, are the same in our days 
as they were in those distant times, the history of which is 
preserved by the monuments. Far from tending to modify 
a race which is already fixed, they have only helped to fix it 
more and more. In the order of ideas which I support, a 
change in the Egyptian type would be inconceivable. 

The persistence of a type, far from being an objection to 
the manner in which I understand the conditions of life to 



258 The Human Species. 

act, viz. : the formation and maintenance of r&vces, is a con- 
firmation of it. 

XIV. In conclusion ; like all animal and vegetable species, 
the human species can vary within certain lini-'ts; like 
plants and animals, man has his varieties and races, which 
have appeared and been formed by the action of the s same 
causes. 

In the human kingdom, as in the two other organic 
kingdoms, the first causes of variation are, conditions of life 
and heredity. 

In phenomena of this kind, conditions of life act as the 
supreme ruler. If they vary, they become modifying agents, 
if they remain constant, agents of stabilisation. 

In both cases their result is to harmonise organisms with 
the conditions of their existence. 

Heredity, which is essentially a preserving agent, becomes 
an agent of variation, when it transmits and accumulates the 
modifying actions of the conditions of life. 

XV. It is now easy to understand, in the general sense, 
the formation of human races. 

Man at first doubtless peopled his centre of appearance 
and the countries immediately adjoining. He then com- 
menced the immense and varied dispersion which dates 
from tertiary times and continues to the present day. He 
has passed through two geological epochs, and is now in his 
third. He has seen the mammoth and rhinoceros flourishing 
in Siberia in the midst of a rich fauna ; he has at least seen 
them driven by the cold into the midst of Europe ; and he 
has assisted in their extinction. Later on, he has retaken 
possession of the barren-lands himself; he has pushed his 
colonies as far as the neighbourhood of the pole, perhaps to 
the very pole itself, while at the same time he has invaded 
the forests and deserts of the tropics, reached the extremity 
of two great continents, and peopled all the archipelagoes. 

For many thousands of years, man has therefore been 
subject to the action of all the external conditions of life 
with which we are acquainted, to that of the conditions of life 



Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 259 

. f which we /can at the utmost only form an idea. The 
various kind;s of life to which he has been subjected, and the 
different degrees of civilisation at which he stopped or to 
which he, has reached, have all diversified still more his con- 
ditions of existence. Was it possible that he should retain 
everywhere and for all time his original characters ? 

Experience and observation lead to an entirely opposite con- 
clusion. When we see the Anglo-Saxon of our days, although 
protected by all the resources of an advanced civilisation, sub- 
jected to the American conditions of life, and changed into a 
Yankee, we must admit that at each of his great stages, when 
man is submitted to new conditions of existence, he has had 
to harmonise himself with them, and in so doing undergo 
modification. Each of these principal stations has neces- 
sarily witnessed the formation of a corresponding race. The 
original characters, thus successively affected, have become 
more and more altered, by reason of the length of the 
journey, and the difference of conditions. When they have 
reached the end of their journey the grandchildren of the 
first emigrants would certainly only retain very few of the 
characters of their ancestors. 

The original human type has probably presented, for an 
indefinite time, its original characters in the tribes which 
remained fixed to the centre of appearance for our species. 
When the glacial epoch began, which, according to all appear- 
ance, made the earliest country of man uninhabitable, these 
tribes were forced to emigrate in their turn. Since that time 
the earth has no longer had autochthones, but has only been 
peopled by colonists. At the same time the modifying 
action of the conditions of life was felt by these last comers, 
who themselves were also transformed. 

From this moment, the original type of man has been 
lost ; the human species was only composed of races, all of 
which differed more or less from the first model. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

FORMATION OF MIXED HUMAN RACES. 

I. The races which had been developed by the sole action 
of the conditions of life and of heredity, did not remain 
isolated. The earliest emigrants from the centre of appear- 
ance certainly did not pass at once to the extremity of the 
area determined by their first stages. They stopped on 
the way ; they formed secondary centres, round which fresh 
emigrations spread. The history of the Lenni Lenapes, as of 
the Polynesians, proves that this must have been the case. 
Consequently, in many cases, the races first formed must 
frequently have come in contact. Then, as the waves of 
emigration followed each other, the last comers would meet 
on their way with those who preceded them. It will further 
on be proved that facts of this nature have occurred since 
Quaternary times. 

Whether peaceful or otherwise, these contacts would 
result in reciprocal penetrations, and consequently in inter- 
crossings. 

The founders of anthropology, Buffon, Blumenbach, and 
even Prichard, have taken very little notice of crossings 
between human races, and have neglected their importance. 
It can scarcely be brought as a serious reproach against 
them. The two former were unacquainted with many of the 
facts which we possess at present. Prichard was neither a 
naturalist nor a physiologist. Moreover, nothing forcibly 
directed their attention towards crossings which might have 
occurred in more or less distant times, or among nations still 
insufficiently known. 

At the present time this indifference is impossible. On 



Form Mi/on of Mixed Human Races. 261 

the one hand/ the hotter the various nations are known, the 
greater hec^mes the number of those which derive their 
origin from intercrossing; on the other hand, it is impossible 
not to p-'jy attention to everything which happens to man- 
kind in consequence of the impulse to expansion and 
mixtoi which takes place on every side. From seeing the 
phenomena which occur in the present times, we are naturally 
led to investigate those which may have taken place in times 
past. 

II. Are mixed human races formed now ? In the presence 
of the general facts which I have related in a preceding 
chapter, this question might appear strange. Nevertheless, 
the question has been asked, and in a more or less formal 
manner has been answered in the negative. A few words 
on the subject are therefore necessary. 

We may consider the era of modern crossings as dating 
from the discovery of the new world. Nevertheless the 
mixture of bloods has only taken place on a large scale at a 
later period, at the utmost after the conquest of the Indies 
in 1515, that of Mexico in 1520, and that of Peru in 1534. 
We are not separated from this epoch by more than three 
centuries and a half. And yet M. d'Omalius, only counting 
the products of the crossing of the European White with the 
different coloured races, estimates the number of half-breeds 
at eighteen millions. The population of the globe being esti- 
mated as 1200 millions, the product of cross-unions is already 
represented by about -isth. 

We know, moreover, how irregular is the distribution of 
half-breeds. Immense tracts of country have not been 
affected. But where the peoples are in intimate contact, 
the proportion is much greater. In Mexico and South 
America half-breeds constitute at least one-fifth of the popu- 
lation. 

But, say Knox and the other anthropologists who more or 
less explicitly adopt his views, the number of half-breeds is 
entirely kept up by incessant cross-unions. If abandoned to 
themselves, and if they no longer had access to the pure 



■\\ 

262 The Human Species, \ 

races, they would rapidly disappear. I will 'confine myself 
to quoting a few facts in opposition to these assertions. 

At the Cape, the intercrossing of the Dutc^ and the 
Hottentots has resulted in half-breeds called Baxters, who 
soon became sufficiently numerous to inspire alarm. They 
were banished beyond the Orange river. Here they settled 
under the name of Griquas, and they increased in numbers 
rapidly. A portion remained behind in the colony, and 
formed villages, among others that of New Platberg. The 
Basters intermarried between themselves, and travellers 
testify to the fertility of these unions. 

Martins has seen the Cafusos, the result of the crossing of 
escaped Negroes with the Brazilian indigenes. Having re- 
tired into the woods, where they found a refuge, they have 
formed a separate race there. 

Admiral Jurien de la Graviere informs us that at Manilla 
the half-breeds of Spaniards, Chinese, and Tagals, are much 
more numerous than the original stocks. At Mindanao 
half-breeds of Spaniards and Tagals form the majority of the 
inhabitants. " The fusion of races," he adds, " has taken 
place with marvellous facility in this isolated corner of the 
earth." 

The Marquesas Islands, suffering the fate of the other 
Polynesian countries, have been depopulated by that mys- 
terious malady which seems capable of annihilating oceanic 
populations. M. Jouan informs us that they are repeopled 
by half-breeds. 

Upon the whole of the littoral zone of South America, 
according to M. Martin de Monosy, mixed peoples are pros- 
pering and rapidly on the increase. 

We may close this enumeration by a detailed account of a 
fact which is well known, and which has all the value of a 
precise experiment. 

In 1789, in consequence of a mutiny, nine English sailors 
went and established themselves upon the small island of 
Pitcairn, in the Pacific Ocean, accompanied by six Tahitian 
men and fifteen Tahitian women. In consequence of the 



Formation of Mixed Hitman Races. 263 

Whites becon/ing tyrannical, the war of race began. In 
1793 the population was reduced to four Whites and to ten 
Tahitian women. Soon war broke out afresh between the 
four chiefs of the colony, and Adams only was left. But 
marriages had been fruitful ; the first half-breeds grew up, 
intermarried, and had numerous children. In 1825, Captain 
Beechey found sixty-six individuals on Pitcairn Island. To- 
wards the end of 1830 the population numbered eighty- 
seven. In spite of the deplorable conditions of the outset, 
the mixed Pitcairn race had then almost doubled in twenty- 
five years, and almost tripled in thirty-three years. Now 
England, the most favoured country in Europe in this respect, 
only doubles its population in forty-nine years. Thus the 
half-breeds of banished English and Polynesians had on 
Pitcairn Island about double the number of offspring that 
pure Anglo-Saxons have when placed in their customary 
conditions of life. 

Thus the white race, when crossed with races most dif- 
ferent in characters and habit, have given rise to mixed 
peoples, which have continued to increase since their appear- 
ance. No reason can be given why this movement of increase 
should stop or even slacken. 

III. There remains the intercrossing of the White and the 
Negro. It is with reference to this that some facts have been 
quoted tending to prove that half-breeds cannot propagate 
among themselves. Let us examine them rapidly. 

Etwick and Long, in their History of Jamaica, have 
asserted that Mulattoes cease to be reproductive in that island 
beyond the third generation. Dr. Yvan has pointed out an 
analogous fact in Java. Dr. Nott has found that in South 
Carolina, Mulattoes are endowed with low fertility, that they 
have a shorter life than other human races, and that they 
frequently die at an early age. Without going so far, Dr. 
Simonnot attributes to these half-breeds a sort of ethno- 
logical neutrality, " which only assures them an ephemeral 
duration as soon as they are abandoned to themselves." 

Nothing is easier than to oppose contrary facts to the 



\ 

I 

\ 

264 The Human Species, \ 

foregoing. I can even invoke the testimony of some of the 
same authors whom I have just quoted. Nott, after having 
in a general manner formulated the aphorisms which I have 
just summed up, admits that they only apply to South Caro- 
lina, whilst in Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama, the Mulattoes 
are robust, fruitful, and energetic. I find that Dr.. Yvan 
himself states that his observations only concern Java, and 
that he had pointed out the fact as exceptional. 

On the other hand, Hombron declares that in our colonies 
" Negresses and Whites show a moderate fertility ; Mulatto 
women and Whites are extremely fertile as well as Mulatto 
men and women." 

" Even in such conditions of life as those of the Gulf of 
Mexico, the Mulatto," according to M. Rufz, " is well 
developed, strong, alert, more adapted than the Negro for 
industrial application, and very productive." According to 
M. Audain, in the Dominican Republic of St. Domingo, " one- 
third are Negroes, two- thirds Mulattoes, and an insignificant 
proportion Whites." For a long time this population has not 
been fed by any fresh arrivals ; its continuance is entirely due 
to itself. 

More quotations, I think, are useless. When added to the 
numbers of M. Martin de Moussey, who makes no exception 
concerning Mulattoes, they are sufficient to demonstrate the 
following general fact, viz., that the Mulatto is as energetic 
and as fruitful as other races, at least in a very great majority 
of those parts of the globe where this mixed population has 
been formed. 

IV. Nevertheless, I do not deny the facts advanced by 
Etwick, Long, Nott, Yvan, and Simonnot. I accept them 
without so much as discussing them. But what do they 
prove in the presence of the remaining facts which are so 
numerous and so conclusive ? At the most that the develop- 
ment of the mulatto race can be favoured, retarded, or 
hindered by local circumstances. In other terms, that it 
depends upon the influences exercised by the whole of the 
conditions of life (milieu). 



Formcj/tipn of Mixed Human Races. 265 

We see, tUeti, in the formation of the mixed races, the 
reappearanc/e of this element, whose action plays so large a 
part in tho natural history of man, and great attention should 
be paid t'o it. 

In the result of the crossing of the Negro and the White 
in Jamaica, Java, &c, its intervention could be foreseen. The 
two races are strangers to these countries, which are known 
to be very destructive to foreign races. The question of 
crossing is complicated in these cases, by the phenomena 
and difficulties of acclimatisation. Can we feel surprised 
that unions contracted under such conditions of existence 
should only present precarious guarantees for the future ? 

We must here, moreover, take into account an element 
which is constantly neglected, and whose importance in 
questions of this nature has always struck me strongly. I 
mean "morality. It therefore forms one of the conditions 
of life (milieu). Now, if we pay attention to the details, 
which are not numerous, but which are very significant, 
given by some travellers upon the existence of Europeans 
in the colonies, in Jamaica in particular ; if we compare these 
melancholy facts with those furnished by daily observation, 
an entirely new light will be thrown upon the questions of 
crossing and acclimatisation. We shall be obliged to 
recognise that the death of the fathers, and the extinction 
of the descendants, are often only the consequence of, and 
the punishment for, the deplorable moral conditions of life, 
in which they have lived. 

Y. But the physical conditions of life have also their 
peculiar action. The following example may be quoted as 
a proof. 

M. Simonnot has noticed natives of Senegambia, " who 
combine a perfectly black skin, with all the characteristic 
forms of the Moor, even at all ages." According to him, these 
black Moors are a mixed race. If this is the case, it must, at 
least, be recognised that the white blood predominates con- 
siderably, since all the forms belong to this type. In order 
that the colour of the Negro should be persistent, in spite of 



266 The Human Species. \ 

this profound Semitic influence, a local acti&ni some of the 
action of the conditions of life, must have nei after having 
ordinary laws of the mixture of races, and united hich I have 
of one race with the features and forms of another.\nth Caro- 

If this conclusion requires confirmation, the facts'ulattoes 
by Prosper Lucas will be sufficient. He treats of , Yvan 
between Negroes and Whites accomplished in Europe. v and 
the same family we find the black blood predominate 
first, then lose its influence, and by degrees become effacies 
almost entirely in the children of the later generations. L 
one of these observations, the mother belonged to the black 
race ; so that infidelity was unable to effect any change in 
the conditions of the experiment. It was then the conditions 
of life which gradually blanched these half-breeds, who would 
all have been black upon the borders of Senegal. 

VI. Some anthropologists, although recognising the multi- 
plicity and fertility of the crossings between human races, 
only see in this fact a confusion of blood, and complain that 
nowhere do they find a mixed race of recent origin which is 
well characterised. Consequently they deny that the crossing 
can have any influence in the formation of the races with 
mixed but constant characters which form part of the popu- 
lation of the globe. 

This objection rests upon a disregard of the phenomena 
which accompany the formation of animal races by the pro- 
duction of mongrels. All breeders know well that a deter- 
minate and settled race cannot at once be produced by 
crossing. In such a case, the conflict and the compromises, 
of which I have spoken above, become more marked, for 
the very reason that we have to blend two natures which are 
dissimilar in some respects. Immediate and direct heredity 
alone continually produces phenomena of fusion or of juxta- 
position, or else causes the appearance of neAv features, the 
resultant of two different characters. Mediate and indirect 
heredity, as well as atavism, continually intervene and 
produce numerous irregularities in the succeeding genera- 
tions. The more the races differ and are equal in respect to 



Formation of Mixed Human Races, 267 

We see, the marked and persistent are these irregularities. 
reappearanc/Ancon race still gave irregular products. For 
part in thoiwenty years M. Malingie has failed in settling 
be paid t.^ois race, so that it might itself serve for fresh 

In %. 
in Jan clever breeder, whom I have just mentioned, as well 
two /other breeders, have moreover only attained their end 
to ^ieans of minute care in the choice of the animals from 
crich they breed. Now, between human races there can be 
aj> question of selection. The unions have always taken 
piace by chance. Moreover, in the immense majority of 
cases, the continual intervention of individuals of pure race 
increases, and prolongs the confusion. This absence of 
uniformity, which astonishes polygenists, is easily explained 
by those who only consider human groups as races. From a 
general point of view it is very instructive ; if it brings 
forward diversity of races, it attests specific unity. It is 
not between species that crossing presents similar phenomena. 
But nevertheless, through this disorder, there appear in 
the mixed populations of our colonies, general common 
characters, which have attracted the attention of travellers, 
and have been described. 

Moreover, when, in consequence of some circumstance, the 
products of these crossings are isolated and protected from 
new mixtures, the race becomes characterised w T ith rapidity. 
The Cafusos, Basters, and Griquas, may be quoted as examples. 
Even the Pitcairn islanders, at the time of Beechey's visit, 
were beginning to become uniform. 

VII. In the crossings between unequal human races, the 
father almost always belongs to the superior race. In every 
case, and especially in transient amours, woman refuses to 
lower herself ; man is less delicate. 

From the point of view of the future of the mixed races, 
the predominant action of one sex over the product should 
have then great importance. The question has been put 
since the origin of societies, as is testified by the laws of 
Manou; it has been repeatedly discussed by thinkers and 



268 The Human Specie:. \ 

physiologists. Each sex has had its champion^ that is, an 
ous facts have been quoted on both sides. Consi^ralised the 
thing, it appears to me impossible to avoid decidUAe colour 
of equality of action. \ 

Nevertheless this equality is purely virtual ; it car quoted 
only exist on the condition of an equal generating ei, unions 
both parents. As soon as the equilibrium is interrupts In 
stronger sex predominates, and the product shows this £ at 
riority. The experiments of Giron de Buzareingue upon ed 
procreation of the sexes, appeared to me to be most decisis 
in this respect. 

Now what is true of the whole of the organism is equally 
true of its different parts, functions, and energies. In the 
formation of a new being, the action of heredity is divided 
into as many cases as there are characters to transmit. 
Both father and mother tend to reproduce themselves in 
their offspring ; there is, consequently, a struggle between 
both natures. But the battle, if we may use the expression, 
results in a number of single combats in which each parent 
may be in turn victor or vanquished. 

This very simple consideration, which is deduced from a 
number of facts of detail, explains many results which cause 
surprise to physiologists, anthropologists, etc. After having 
attributed a preponderating action to the mother, Nott 
declares with surprise, that, in point of intelligence, the 
Mulatto approaches more to his white father. But is not 
the intellectual energy of the latter superior to that of the 
mother ? And is it not natural that it should gain the 
ascendant in the struggle between the two hereditary 
powers ? We know how far this victory can go, and how 
the two natures can, so to speak, divide the product of this 
crossing between them. Lislet Geoffroy, entirely a Negro 
physically, though entirely a White in character, intelligence, 
and aptitudes, is a striking example of it. 

This victory of the superior energies is again shown in 
another very remarkable manner, in the crossing of white 
and black races. The former is, of all races, most sensible 



Formation of Mixed Human Races. 269 

hloocl t the moivnfluences, the latter best able to resist them. 
In 1800 the^unt it is almost exempt from yellow fever. The 
more than Jierits this double power of resistance. Nott 
his charrrs that a proportion of one fourth of black blood is 
crossing^ protection against the yellow fever, as vaccination 

The v t the small-pox. 
as alii may now understand, that, in crossing between different 
by i#5, the half-breeds possess the characters which, in each 
wh'them, predominate over the corresponding characters of 
nae other. If the energies are in equilibrium, there will 
generally be a compromise. The Negro and the White 
differ essentially in colour and the texture of the hair ; the 
colour of the eyes varies almost as much in one as in the 
other. In the Mulatto, the two first characters almost 
always betray the double origin of the individual ; the third 
is uncertain. 

On the contrary, in half-breeds of the white and the 
indigenous American, the eyes and hair are almost always 
derived from the latter. Humboldt has remarked that these 
two characters are persistent even after several generations, 
in unilateral crossing towards the White. M. Ferdinand 
Denis recognised a descendant of the caciques by the eyes. 
On the other hand, in the same crossings, the colour of the 
White overcomes that of the American at the second, and 
sometimes even at the first generation. 

The crossing of the Slav and the Bouriate presents similar 
facts. The half-breeds invariably have the hair and eyes of 
the second. 

VIII. " In Brazil," says Martin de Moussy, " mixed races 
of every origin increase, and form a new population which 
becomes more indigenous every day, if we may use the 
expression, and always more similar to the white type, which, 
according to what takes place in the whole of South America, 
will-, in the end, absorb all the rest." An analogous fact has 
been pointed out at Buenos Ayres, in Paraguay, etc. 

Can we then consider this result as a sign of the 
ascendancy of the white race ? I do not think so. I rather 



270 The Human Species. \ 

consider it as the consequence of the general tendency 
pointed out above. 7? 

In the countries which we are discussing, t&e Negress 
or Indian woman readily crosses with the White, Tlhe female 
issue of these unions, proud of the blood of her father, would 
consider herself degraded if wedded to an individual of 
coloured race, and reserves all her favours for those to whom 
she approximates by reason of the crossing. The Quadroon 
reasons and acts in the same manner. In these regions, 
where colour decides caste, it is always men of whiter racve, 
and especially the pure white, that the women prefer to 
marry. 

The consequence of this is, that the crossing, although 
apparently left to chance, is in reality unilateral, .and always 
directed towards the superior race. It is accomplished 
under the influence of a real unconscious selection, and 
the predominance of the white blood is the result of this 
selection. 

Sooner or later it will also result in the fulfilment of the 
prediction of Martin de Moussy. The mixed races will in 
a great measure return to the superior race. But, when 
brought back to the white type by this circuitous path, and 
through all these degrees of crossing, they will possess one 
very great advantage over their European counterpart : they 
will be acclimatised. 

The reverse phenomena appear, according to Squiers, to 
be taking place in Peru, Here the mixed population tends 
to return to the indigenous type. The fact is explained, at 
least in part, by the relations which, since the commencement 
of the conquest, were established between the conquerors 
and the conquered race. 

The former could not affect unlimited contempt for a 
conquered race who were as civilised as themselves. Their 
leaders made alliances at an early period with the families 
of the Incas, and this example was followed. Consequently 
colour cannot exercise the same influence in Peru as in 
Brazil or at Buenos Ayres. The numerical predominance of 



f ftipn of Mixed Human Races. 271 

the hxed SU pe/arid the conditions of life had then a free field, 
and theiir^ idble influence is shown in the result pointed out 
by Squiers/ 

IX. Ca,n human crossing, so general in our days, be a 
new phenomenon in the history of mankind ? Evidently 
not. In the past as in the present, every contact between 
two races of any continuance, every immigration, and every 
conquest has led to the formation of a mixed race. It is 
one of the inevitable consequences of human instincts and 
of physiological laws. 

It is quite natural that polygenists should have neglected 
facts of this nature. In their opinion a population with 
mixed characters is a species as much as any other, which is 
intermediate between two given specific types. But the 
indifference or the mistake of monogenists is less easily 
explained. They are evidently ignorant of the phenomena 
of crossings among plants and animals. When they meet 
with a race of undecided characters, and which presents more 
or less distant analogies with two different types, they have 
generally felt embarrassed, and have put the question on one 
side, or have at most invoked the action of conditions of life 
in a vasrue manner. 

It is quite true that the latter, when effecting a resem- 
blance between foreign races and the local race, leads to 
results analogous to those which result from crossing. We 
have seen an example of it in the United States. Yet 
crossing has its peculiar phenomena, which are persistent 
even after several generations. Moreover, to the indica- 
tions drawn from physical and physiological characters we 
may add others borrowed from very different orders of 
facts, and which, in many cases, permit us to draw a con- 
clusion with remarkable certainty. The mixture of beliefs, 
customs, and manners often furnishes valuable informa- 
tion. But the comparison of languages generally throws an 
unexpected light npon problems apparently most difficult. 
From time to time legends and history confirm inductions 
drawn from the orders of facts which I have just pointed 



272 The Human Species. 

out, and testify to the correctness of views >? ter lit first 
sight, might appear conjectural. 

As an example I will quota the Zulu Kaffirs:* v They are 
one of the groups of which some polygenists make* a distinct 
species. They are in fact distinguished from otn&r negro 
races by several characters. But by these characters they 
are brought nearer to the white type. Moreover, various 
travellers inform us that they present a great variability of 
feature. Missionaries who have lived among them add that, 
in the same family, and under conditions which render all 
crossing impossible, individuals are met with who have the 
hair and colour of a Negro, and others whose hair is smooth 
and whose colour is brown. These facts alone would autho- 
rise the conclusion that the Zulus are a mixed race. 

Philology confirms this conclusion. Philologists agree 
in placing the Kaffir languages in the group of Zimbian 
languages, whose grammar and vocabulary are fundamen- 
tally negro, but which also include arab, nilotic, and malgach 
elements. Thus language, as well as physical characters, 
points to a mixture of blood. 

The chronicle discovered by Captain Guillain justifies 
these conclusions by giving the history of the arab colonies 
from Quiloa to Sofala. It relates the wars which were 
raised for the possession of the gold mines ; it shows the 
conquerors driving out the conquered, and compelling them 
to go southwards to seek a new country. It is evident 
that the latter have crossed Delagoa Bay, where they have 
left the black race in its state of original inferiority, and 
have gone further to ally themselves voluntarily or involun- 
tarily with tribes whose type has thus risen. 

In fact, far from being a species, the Zulus are a mixed 
race of Negroes and Arabs, whose formation is so recent that 
mediate heredity and atavism still betray the double origin, 
which is also attested by philology, but in which the negro 
element preserves a very great superiority. 

X. The investigation of mixed populations, the deter- 
mination of the part played by each of the elements which 



torn of Mixed Human Races. 273 

have ( a( j supej/in their formation, belong to the most inte- 
resti c y a ^j on j/ions of anthropology. This study ought not to 
stop/ er y rea )ulations in which the mixture of characters is 
evi(.?Q erm ^ first sight. It ought also to bear upon those 
whi g n(r e generally regarded as quite pure. We should 
then nnd that mixture of races has penetrated where it was 
/scarcely suspected. 

In China and especially in Japan, the white allophylian 
blood is mixed with the yellow blood in different propor- 
tions ; the white Semitic blood has penetrated into the 
heart of Africa ; the negro and houzouana types have 
mutually penetrated each other and produced all the Kaffir 
populations situated west of the Zulus of Arabian origin ; 
the Malay races are the result of the amalgamation, in 
different proportions, of Whites, Yellows, and Blacks ; the 
Malays proper, far from constituting a species, as polygenists 
consider them, are only one population, in which, under 
the influence of Islamism, these various elements have been 
more completely fused, etc. 

I have quoted at random the various preceding ex- 
amples, to show how the most extreme types of mankind 
have contributed to form a certain number of races. Need 
I insist upon the mixtures which have been accomplished 
between the secondary types derived from the first ? In 
Europe what population can pretend to purity of blood ? 
The Basques themselves, who apparently ought to be well 
protected by their country, institutions, and language against 
the invasion of foreign blood, show upon certain points, in 
the heart of their mountains, the evident traces of the 
juxtaposition and fusion of very different races. 

As for the other nations ranging from Lapland to the 
Mediterranean, classical history, although it does not go 
back a great distance in point of time, is a sufficient proof 
that crossings are the inevitable result of invasions, wars, 
and political and social events. Asia presents, as we know, 
the same spectacle ; and, in the heart of Africa, the Jagas, 
playing the part of the hordes of Gengis-Khan, have 



274 The Human Species 

mixed together the African tribes from okef > an( * r a\o the 
other. ^eri 

XI. I need scarcely allude here to the general Thejhich 
follow from the detailed history of races. Short> a dist n it 
be, this appeal to the readers memory willj I hofe ne[ e a 
sufficient motive for the following conclusions. >rg the , 

Conditions of life and heredity have fashioned tiuarious" 
human races, a certain number of which, on account of *ty of 
isolation, have been able to preserve for an indefinite tHat, 
this first characteristic. Ml 

Perhaps it was during this very distant period that the 
three great types of the Negro, the Yellow, and the White 
were characterised. 

The migratory and conquering instincts of man have 
brought about a meeting between these primary races, and 
consequently a crossing between them. 

Since the appearance of mixed races, crossing itself has 
only acted under the domination of the conditions of life 
and heredity. 

The great movements of nations have only taken place 
at long intervals, and as it were form so many crises. In 
the interval between these crises, the races which have 
been formed by the crossing have had time to settle and 
become uniform. 

The consolidation of the mixed races, the relative uni- 
formity of characters effected by the crossing, have taken 
place very slowly, in consequence of the absolute want of 
selection. Consequently every mixed race which has become 
uniform is also very ancient. 

Human instincts have produced the mixture of mixed 
races, just as they have produced that of the primary 
races. 

Every mixed race, when uniform and settled, has been 
able to play the part of a primary race in fresh crossings- 
Mankind, in its present state, has thus been formed, certainly 
for the greatest part, by the successive crossing of a number 
of races at present undetermined. 



/ Influef Mixed Human Races. 275 

/ 
Th* ad superior civj races which we know, the quaternary 
race^ation, it lostepresented in our own days, either by 
poptfery respect. erally small in number, or by isolated indi- 
vic/ Germanic horn atavism reproduces the characters of 
oi /is now e ancestors. This is a fact which will be proved 
fij/xture, ha f 
■lis very;/ 
/omplr 
jhird 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

INFLUENCE OF CROSSING UPON MIXED HUMAN RACE. 

I. Has the crossing of human races been, or will it 
advantageous or detrimental to the species considered as <* 
whole ? The followers of Morton in America, and of MM. de 
Gobineau and Perrier in France, have stated that human 
crossing had, or would have in the future, disastrous conse- 
quences. Has this opinion any foundation ? Let us study 
the facts. 

M. Gobineau appeals to history, and goes back to the 
earliest ages of mankind. According to him, three funda- 
mental races, the black, the yellow, and the white, were 
formed originally. The yellow race occupied the whole of 
America ; the negro race all the southern parts of the old 
continent as far as the Caspian Sea ; the white race was 
localised in Central Asia. The two former, degraded from 
an intellectual and moral as well as from a physical point of 
view, and unable to elevate themselves unaided above the 
savage state, only existed as tribes. The third was the only 
one which united bodily beauty with a warlike spirit, to the 
faculty of initiative, of organization and progress, which gives 
rise to societies and to civilization: The day came when the 
yellow race burst upon Asia, and, avoiding the central region 
occupied by the whites, went to people the western regions 
of the old world. Then, this wave, continuing its course, 
submerged the white race, which, in its turn, began to 
emigrate ; and by the mixture of its blood with that of the 
inferior races, produced all the peoples who have succeeded 
each other upon the earth. At the beginning of this new 
era, the white blood, being more pure and more abundant, 



Influence of Crossing. 277 

produced superior civilizations. Becoming rarer at each new 
emigr ation, it lost its influence, and civilization diminished 
in ev/ery respect. The last effort of this renovating race was 
the /Germanic invasion which destroyed the Roman world. 
It is now exhausted. The white blood, vitiated by the 
mi/xture, has everywhere lost its first efficacy. Mankind for 
this very reason is in a full decline. The fusion will soon be 

Jomplete. Every individual will have in his veins one- 
hird of white blood and two-thirds of coloured blood, and 
we shall then inevitably return to barbarism. Finally, the 
repeated crossings will have rendered the human species 
barren ; it will then die out and disappear. 

Such is, in a few words, the theory of M. de Gobineau. 
Let us accept it with all its hypotheses, including that of 
the migration from America to Asia, which is contrary to 
all our knowledge upon this point. Does it follow that 
the author is consistent? In order to be so, he ought to 
point out the privileged race, founding by itself one at least 
of those great societies, one of those civilizations, as M. de 
Gobineau calls them, recorded by history. Now the author 
is unable to point out a single example, and is obliged to 
admit that the exclusively tuhite civilization has existed in 
Central Asia without leaving any other trace than the 
tumuli which have for a long time been attributed to 
Scythians, Tchoudes, etc. But everyone knows the state 
of the whites, when they left their Asiatic centre. In India 
they were the Aryans, still a half-pastoral race ; in Europe, 
the barbarians who destroyed the Roman world. Had either 
of them a civilization equal to that of the Egyptians or the 
Greeks ? 

M. de Gobineau enumerates ten civilizations, namely, 
Assyrian, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, German, 
Alleghanian, Mexican, and Peruvian. All, according to him, 
were produced in consequence of the mixture of whites 
with coloured races. But admitting that such has been 
the case, is it not evident that this mixture has everywhere 
given rise to an immense progress. The ruins of Nineveh 



278 The Human Species, 

Thebes, Athens, Rome, and even those of Palanque, certainly 
point to populations of a different civilization to that of the 
people who raised the tumuli in Central Asia. 

In order to draw their logical consequences froml the 
facts which he admits or supposes, M. de Gobineau shield 
regard the formation of half-breeds as the most power iful 
element of progress. As we have seen he adopts the 
opposite opinion. He considers that all these civilizations, 
which were splendid in the case of the Assyrians and 
Egyptians, have been dwindling away and diminishing, 
and what remains in our own days, only deserves our 
scorn. 

Without being blinded by self-conceit, we may protect 
against this conclusion. Doubtless we no longer raise 
towers of Babel, nor do we build pyramids. Gigantic 
works which are useless, or undertaken for the glorification 
of a single man, do not belong to our time. But when 
some generally useful work arises, do we recoil before the 
magnitude of the task % The time truly has been badly 
chosen to accuse us of feebleness. The Suez Canal has 
been made on a different scale to the small trench of the 
Pharaohs, and in tunnelling the Alps for a railway, we 
have accomplished what antiquity had never dared to 
dream of. 

It is still true that, taken en masse, we are less artistic 
than the Athenians. But without leaving the domain of 
the arts, there are points in which we surpass them. To 
judge from the anecdotes which throw, light upon the 
nature of the talent of their greatest artists, painting and 
music among the Greeks were not up to the level of 
sculpture. If we have not our Phidias, they had not their 
Raphael, their Michael Angelo, their Beethoven, nor their 
Rossini. 

But, when he condemns us to a radical inferiority, M. 
de Gobineau especially forgets the most striking character 
of modern times. He disregards the scientific development, 
which is without example or analogy in the past, and which 



Influence of Crossing. 279 

gives 'an absolutely fresh appearance to our civilization. We 
who j are sprung from races crossed a hundred times, are at 
leas^t the equals of our forefathers, but no longer resemble 
the^m. Inferior in some respects, we make up for it 
thoroughly in other respects. We manifest human power 
u/nder different aspects. 

1 Highly gifted though man may be, he cannot at once 
/reach all the limits of the field which is open to his activity- 
(For this reason, in time as well as in space, we find by the 
side of inferior peoples and races, other peoples and races 
which are superior, equal among themselves, but different. 
Such is the real information gained by a comparison of the 
present and past condition of mankind. 

II. M. Perrier is a polygenist and an autochthonist ; he 
makes use of the expression 'pure race as equivalent to the 
term species. Being a physician, and a learned one, he 
touches upon anatomical and physiological questions, and 
upon the limited fertility and sterility of half-breeds, and 
reproduces some of the opinions which I have already at- 
tacked. He pays particular attention to present popula- 
tions, and endeavours to prove the superiority of those which 
he regards as pure. He quotes the Arabs in particular, 
and praises their ancient and modern civilizations. But on 
this point I make the same objection to him which I made to 
M. de Gobineau. We know very little of the Himyarites and 
the Adites. Caussin de Perceval shows them to have played 
at different times the part of conquerors ; but they were 
conquerors who were barbarians, and whose manners were 
thoroughly savage. When they left their deserts under the 
impulse of Islamism, did they appear with the marks of civi- 
lized peoples ? Certainly not. It was only after their con- 
quests, and in consequence of the crossings which they under- 
went, that we find the great Arabian civilizations rise in 
Africa, Asia, and in Spain. Was the civilization, which 
was developed upon the spot, and which has been brought 
to light by Palgrave, equal to that of the Almohades, the 
Almoravides, or the Abassides ? Evidently not. Here,, 
13 



280 The Hitman Species. 

again, crossing is found to have given rise to most striking 
progress. 

M. Perrier lays especial stress upon physical perfection, 
and particularly upon that of women. Let us accept i^his 
criterion. Is purity of blood the sole cause of this beauty? 
If this were so, in the same country, the purest populations 
should show the fairest women. But in France, for exampie\ 
the inhabitants of Auvergne, secluded among their mountains,! 
are undoubtedly of a purer race than the inhabitants of the 
plains in Southern France, where so many different races, 
have come in contact. Well, can the women of Upper 
Auvergne dispute the prize with the grisette of Aries, 
Toulouse, or of Montpellier? These three feminine types 
are very distinct ; they clearly point to a mixture of blood. 
They are not the less remarkable in the matter of beauty, 
and are undoubtedly superior to the women of Auvergne. 
In Sicily, where all the Mediterranean populations are con- 
fused together, I have observed analogous facts at Taormina, 
Palermo, Trapani, etc. 

As to the possibility of meeting with women remarkable 
for their personal attractions among mixed races, even when 
the Negro enters as an element in their composition, the re- 
putation of women of colour, mulattoes and quadroons, is a 
sufficient proof. All travellers bear witness to the charm 
which they exercise upon Europeans. Taylor is most ex- 
plicit upon this point, and it is at Tristan d'Acunba, a 
distant island half way between the Cape and South 
America, that he makes his observations. In this isolated 
spot, a mixed population of Whites and Negroes has settled. 
The English traveller speaks as follows : " All who are born 
in the island are mulattoes, though of a very slightly pro- 
nounced type, and of very fine proportions. Almost all have 
the European, much more than the Negro type. I do not 
recollect ever having seen such splendid heads and figures 
as among their young girls. And yet I know all the coasts 
of the earth : Bali and its Malays, Havana and its Creoles, 
Tahiti and its nymphs, and the United States with their 



Influence of Crossing. 281 

distinguished women." It is evident that we here have a 
most , impartial judgment in favour of mulattoes, and given 
by a;<n experienced judge. 

Thus female beauty is met with among certain mixed 
rac/es, and is wanting among other races which are rightly 
re/garded as the purest, the Bosjesmans and the Esquimaux. 
T/he adversaries of human crossings cannot then regard it 
hs an argument in their favour. 

/ III. Although modern crossings only go back three 
centuries, they have already produced results which make 
it certain that races remarkable from every point of view 
may be produced by crossing. The Paulists of Brazil are 
a striking example of the fact. The province of Saint Paul 
has been peopled by Portuguese and inhabitants of the 
Azores from the old world, who have formed alliances with 
the Gayanazes, a hunting and pacific tribe, and with the 
Carijos, who are warlike and agricultural. From these 
unions, which have been regularly contracted, there has 
sprung a race whose men have always been remarkable 
for their fine proportions, their physical power, indomit- 
able courage, and endurance of fatigue. As for the 
women, their beauty has given rise to a Brazilian proverb 
which proves their superiority. This population shows its 
pre-eminence in every respect. If it was once remarkable 
for the expeditions of adventurers in search of gold or slaves, 
it was also the first to plant the sugar-cane in Brazil, and to 
breed immense herds of cattle. " In the present day," says 
F. Denis, " the highest moral development as well as the 
most remarkable intellectual movements appear to come 
from Saint Paul." • 

Such praises paid to a population which is almost 
entirely the result of a mixture of races, by a sagacious 
observer^ who has long lived in Brazil, form a contrast to 
the reproaches cast upon American half-breeds by an im- 
mense majority of travellers. As a general rule they are 
painted in the blackest colours. Although they are allowed 
to possess physical beauty, and perhaps also a prompt and 



282 The Human Species. 

ready intelligence, they are said to be almost entirely without 
morality. Let us admit that they differ as much frona the 
Paulists in this respect as has been stated : the explanation 
of the contrast is not difficult to find. V 

At Saint Paul, the earliest unions were from the nipt 
regularly contracted, thanks to the intervention of Fathers 
Nobrega and Anchieta. In consequence of different cir- 
cumstances, the mamalucos, who were the result of thesdi 
marriages, were at once accepted as the equals of the pure 
Whites. Here the crossing then was accomplished under 
normal conditions, a fact, perhaps, unique in the history y of 
our colonies. 

In reality, the mixture of races elsewhere owes its origin to 
the worst passions ; prejudices of blood have caused half- 
breeds to be regarded as tainted by the vice to which they 
owed their origin, as outcasts from society, or one might say, 
outlatved. Now what branch of the pure white race being 
born, growing, and thriving under contempt and oppression, 
would preserve an elevated and moral character ? Moreover, 
would the white fathers furnish examples capable of 
influencing for good the children which they had aban- 
doned ? The contrary is evidently the case. Unrestrained 
debauchery on one side, and servile submission on the other, 
are the elements in the production of a half-breed race. 
What could heredity transmit in the way of moral character 
to the products of such unions ? 

If anything should surprise us, it is that half-breeds pro- 
duced under such detestable conditions should already have 
been able to raise themselves. Now this has happened, 
even with the mulatftoes, in all cases where prejudices of 
race have been less deeply rooted, and have yielded to per- 
sonal merit. In Brazil, most of the artists and musicians are 
mulattoes, say MM. Troyer and de Lisboa. In confirmation 
of this testimony, M. Lagos added that the political capacity 
and scientific instinct are scarcely less developed among them 
than artistic -aptitude. Several are doctors and medical prac- 
titioners of the highest distinction. Lastly, M. Torres Cai'cedo 



/ Influence of Crossing. 283 

/ 

enum erated to me among the mulattoes of his country, orators, 
poeH, public men, and a vice-president of New Grenada, who 
way-' at the same time a distinguished author. 

If the case is not the same where a social condemnation 
weighs upon the man of colour, the reason is that the moral 
amd social conditions of life never lose their rights any more 
*chan the physical conditions. But the preceding will, I 
/think, be a sufficient proof that, when placed under normal 
'conditions, the half-breed of the Negro and the European 
would certainly justify in every place the words of the old 
traveller Thevenot : "The mulatto can do all that the white 
man can do ; his intelligence is equal to ours." 

IV. Although I protest against the doctrines which tend 
to depreciate mixed races, I am far from pretending that the 
crossing is at all times and in all places fortunate. Un- 
doubtedly, if the union has taken place between inferior 
races, the product will remain at the level of the parents. 
But these unions are few in number. Even in South 
America, the Zambo is relatively rare. The Negro appear- 
ing everywhere in slavery, has been despised by the indi- 
genous populations, who, in spite of their dependent condition, 
have preserved their individual liberty, and have avoided 
union with the Negro. 

It is the White who, impelled by his restless ardour, has 
invaded the world, and is every day multiplying his conquests 
and colonies. It is he who has searched out the home of the 
coloured races, and who everywhere mingles his blood with 
their own. Almost all the half-breed populations recognize 
him as their father, and this gives rise to a double result. 
These races are at once raised above the maternal race, and 
the two brought closer together, as if they possessed a 
common element. 

Will this connection extend as far as fusion, as Serres and 
Maury have admitted ? Will all our present races sooner 
or later be replaced by a single homogeneous race, every- 
where endowed with the same aptitudes and governed by a 
common civilization ? I do not think so ; and what has just 



284 . The Human Species. 

been said justifies the statement that this uniformity \is inr 
possible. 

Doubtless the mixture- of races, favoured and multiplied 
by the growing facility of communication, appears to me\ to 
prepare a new era. The races of the future, differing lass 
in blood, and brought together by railways and steamer.\3, 
will have far more inclinations, wants, and interests in. 
common. Hence a state of things will rise superior to that 
with which we are acquainted, although our civilization 
ought, it seems to me, to continue growing in spite of present 
evils and approaching storms. We know how the Greek, 
Roman, and the modern world were developed in succession ; 
the modern future will embrace the entire globe. 

But, although this civilization will become more general 
and more widely spread, it will not suppress certain differ- 
ences in the conditions of life. As long as there are poles and 
an equator, continents and islands, or mountains and plains, 
races will exist distinguished by characters of every kind, 
and superior or inferior in a physical, intellectual, and moral 
point of view. In spite of crossings, varieties and inequalities 
Avill continue. But as a whole, mankind will be perfected ; 
it will have grown ; and the civilizations of the future, with- 
out causing those of the past to be forgotten, will outstrip 
them in some as yet unknown direction, just as ours have 
outstripped those of our predecessors. 



V. I have just closed the statement of the most general 
questions raised by the history of the human race. 

The principal point to determine is the unity or the 
multiplicity of the species. There are some anthropologists, 
even men of high distinction, who regard it as almost an idle 
question, as merely a question of dogma . or of philosophy. 
Nevertheless, a little reflection is sufficient to make it intel- 
ligible, that the science is entirely changed according as it 
is regarded from a monogenist's or a polygenist's point of 
view. I have already pointed out this fact ; and beg permis- 
sion to return to it in a few words. 



/ Influence of Crossing. 285 

After the fundamental question of unity comes that of 
antiquity. This is put similarly in the two doctrines. But 
the/ problem is simple and absolute for the monogenist, but 
mvdtiple and relative for the polygenist 

/The question of the place of origin, which next presents 
itself, only exists in reality for the believer in the specific 
$nity of human groups. The doctrine of autochthonism, 
though grea/tly multiplying the question, reduces it to very 
simple terms, since it declares that all the populations were 
born upon the spot whose foreign origin it does not establish, 
and only admits movements of expansion. 

For the polygenist the general question of migrations 
does not exist. For particular cases autochthonism supplies 
everything. He who regards the Polynesians as having 
appeared on the islands of the Pacific has not to seek whence 
they might have come. 

The question of acclimatisation for the polygenist is 
reduced to a small number of facts almost exclusively 
modern, human populations being in his eyes naturally 
formed for living under the conditions of life in which they 
were born. 

The question of the formation of races disappears entirely 
fur the polygenist, since the different species admitted by 
him have appeared with all the characters which distinguish 
the different human groups. At most he has to concern 
himself with the results of some modern crossings which are 
too evident to be denied. 

The question of primitive man does not exist for the 
polygenist, since he recognizes all his species with the 
characters which they have had from the commencement. 

No one, I think, will dispute the truth of these proposi- 
tions, which compel the conclusion that anthropology is an 
entirely different science to the monogenist and the poly- 
genist. 

Polygenism seems to simplify the science in a singular 
manner ; it will be said that it suppresses its most apparent 
difficulties. In reality it only does so b} T veiling or denying 



286 The Hitman Species. 

them, and thus conduces to inaccuracy. At the samta time 
it gives rise to others, which, although less easily perceived, 
are nevertheless more important, for they are essentiality of 
a physiological nature, and cannot be solved by the general 
laws of physiology. \ 

Monogenism seems at first to complicate and multiply 
the problems. In reality it only states them clearly. By 
that very means, it causes the necessity of long and per-\ 
severing studies to be felt, which it rewards from time! 
to time with great discoveries. It has required almost a 
century and the combined efforts of travellers, geographers, 
physicians, linguists, and anthropologists to establish the 
origin of the Polynesians, to follow their migrations, and to 
determine the date of them. But when this work is once 
set on the right track, human history is found to be enriched 
by a magnificent page, which gives another testimony to 
the intelligent activity of the human race and its conquests 
over nature. 



;■} 



I BOOK VIIL 

FOSSIL HUMAN RACES. 
CHAPTER XXV. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

I. Tertiary man is only known to us from a few faint 
traces of his industry. Of tertiary man himself we know 
nothing. Portions of his skeleton have been discovered 
from time to time, it has been thought,, in France, Switzer- 
land, and especially in Jtaly. Closer study has, however, 
always forced us to refer to a comparatively much later 
period these human remains, which, at first sight, were 
regarded as tertiary. 

It is different with quaternary man. We have much 
better and more precise information about him than about 
many existing races. The caves which he inhabited, those in 
which he buried his dead, and the alluvial deposits formed 
by rivers, which have borne away his corpses, have preserved 
numerous bones for our study. As many as forty different 
places in all, especially in the western portion of Europe, 
have supplied our museums with as many as forty skulls, 
more or less intact, and numerous fragments of the cranium 
and face, which science has been able to utilize, as well as a 
great number of the bones of the trunk and limbs, and even 
some entire skeletons. The most remarkable specimen, freed 
from the earth which covered it, but still left in its place, was 
brought from Mentone by M. Riviere and is now to be seen 
in the Anthropological Gallery of the Paris Museum. 



288 The Hitman Species. 

Such is the accumulation of facts, already very consider- 
able, which M. Hamy and I have consulted in arranging the 
first part of our Crania-Elhnica. The importance of \the 
skull in anthropology is well known. It is of itself sufficie nt 
to furnish the principal elements of the distinction of hums n 
races. The study and comparison of quaternary skull 3 
enables us, therefore, to form a tolerably definite conception! 
of these ancient populations, of the principal relations and\ 
most striking differences which, from this period, have dis- 
tinguished human groups. The examination of the bones of 
the trunk and limbs tends, moreover, to confirm the results 
furnished by that of the skull. Thus we feel ourselves 
justified in expressing the hope that tbe future, by com- 
pleting our work in many respects, by modifying it perhaps in 
others, and by filling up gaps in it, will at least confirm the 
essential conclusions. 

It is evident that I here speak in M. Hamy's name as 
well as my own. The truth is, that what I am about to say 
on the subject of fossil man is almost the summary, not only 
of our book, but of many other general studies and of many 
discussions. It belongs, in fact, as much to my coadjutor as 
to myself. 

II. Let us, in the first pkice, briefly describe the climate in 
which the fossil human races lived. 

The quaternary or glacial period imposed severe conditions, 
of existence on man. What then existed of Europe was 
surrounded on all sides by the sea, and was subject to all the 
consequences of an insular climate, that is to say, it was very 
damp, and moderately uniform in temperature, but chilled, 
to a great extent at least, by the Polar ice which extended 
even into France. The heavy rains, frequent in all seasons, 
took the form of falls of snow upon the high lands, and 
supported vast glaciers, the traces of which may still be 
seen in all our mountain chains. Immense water-courses 
hollowed out valleys in some parts, and deposited thick beds 
of alluvium in others. This vexed and watery land supported 
a fauna comprising, besides existing species, others which 



Fossil Human Races. 289 

have partly disappeared, partly emigrated to distant countries. 
Thu,^, on the one hand, there were the mammoth (elephas 
prvmigenius), the woolly rhinoceros {rhinoceros tichorhinus), 
the) gigantic Irish elk (megaceros hibemicus), the cave bear 
(itrsus spelceus), the cave hyaena (hycena spelcea), the cave 
tVger (felis spelcea), the horse (equus caballus) ; on the other 
hand, the reindeer (cervus tarandus), the elk (cervus dices), 
,the musk ox (pvibos moschatus), the aurochs (bison europcens), 
the hippopotamus (hippopotamus amphibius), and the lion 
' (fells leo spelcea). 

All these animals lived side by side during the greater 
part of the quaternary period. They afterwards became by 
degrees either extinct or separated. At the commencement 
of the present period, France, in which at one time they 
were all to be found, only retains the horse ; and we must 
admit further, with M. Toussaint, that our beasts of burden 
and draught, are descended from fossil species, an opinion 
which is far from universal amongst palaeontologists. We 
may remark in passing, that the same uncertainty exists 
upon the subject of the spotted hyaena and the grizzly bear, 
regarded by some palaeontologists as recces referable to the 
cave species. 

Man was, in Europe, the contemporary of all these species. 

The phenomena which have given to these countries their 
latest characters, have not always had the same violence, nor 
have they either commenced or terminated abruptly. They 
offered periods of repose and of relative activity, till the 
time when the continents assumed their definite proportions, 
when the glaciers were first confined within their present 
limits. 

The modifications of living beings accord with these 
oscillations of the inorganic world. The principal animal 
species seem to predominate in turn ; the human races 
appear in succession, increase and decline. 

During the deposition of the lotuer alluvium (has niveaux) 
of our valleys, the mammoth, rhinoceros, and great carnivora, 
seem to have played the principal part. Man disputed the 



290 The Human Species. 

ground with them, and fed upon their flesh. The struggle 
against the conditions of life, and the wild beasts orv the 
ancient world was terrible. The race of these primitive 
times bears in a high degree the mark of this savage nature. 

During the period in which the mean inferior alluviiCm 
(moyens niveaux inferieurs) were formed, the great animt 1 
species still inhabited the whole of Europe. The number 0% 
their representatives seems, however, to be diminishing ; less\ 
formidable species begin to multiply, and the horse, in 
particular, forms, at least in places, large herds, which offered ! 
an abundant source of nourishment to man-. The latter was 
represented especially by a race endowed with remarkable 
aptitudes. At first, we find it struggling with as much 
vigour as the preceding one, and under almost identical 
conditions ; but, by degrees, perfecting all its methods of 
action, and adapting them to the new conditions introduced 
by the advance of time. 

A great modification in the fauna corresponds to the 
deposition of the mean upper alluvium (moyens niveaux 
superieurs). The great carnivora and the mammoth become 
more and more rare, till at length they disappear altogether ; 
the horse no longer predominates ; the reindeer has taken its 
place, and wanders in vast herds over lands which are 
gradually subsiding. Man lias profited by these changes. 
New races, perfectly distinct from the preceding ones, appear 
upon our soil. That of the preceding age -develops and 
attains a certain degree of civilization, attested by true works 
of art. 

At length, the bottom of the ocean rises, and Europe is 
complete. The polar ice is confined within its present limits, 
and the insular climate gives place to a continental one, 
with its extremes of heat and cold. The glaciers of our 
mountains gradually contract, and withdraw to higher regions. 
The animal species, no longer finding in the same latitude 
the temperature suitable to them, emigrate, some to the 
south, others to the north, or to the higher mountains. 

Man must necessarily have felt the consequence of these 



Fossil Human Races. 291 

changes. When the animals which formed the basis of his 
nourishment disappeared, never to return, a part at least of 
thej population must have followed, and emigrated at the 
same time. The risinsr societies were thus shaken to their 
vjery foundations, and whilst some tribes went off in opposite 
directions, those which remained behind, experienced a 
/decline of which we may observe the traces in the works 
/ which they have bequeathed to us. They were but too 
easily absorbed by superior races, who brought domestic 
animals with them, and substituted the pastoral life for that 
of the hunter. 

III. The man of the quaternary period has left here and 
there a few of his bones by the side of those animals who 
Avere his contemporaries. The human bones in question 
belong, however, almost exclusively to Europe. The fossil 
man of other parts of the world is almost unknown to us. 
Lund is said to have discovered it in certain caves in Brazil. 
But unfortunately we have no other details of this discovery 
than a short note and two drawings of small dimensions, 
published quite recently by MM. Lacerta and R. Peixoto. 
Much has been said about the skull discovered by Witney in 
California. Unfortunately, the description of this specimen 
has not appeared, so that doubts have, on several occasions, 
been expressed as to the existence of the fossil itself. The 
recent testimony of M. Pinart has removed them, but has, at 
the same time, created the most serious doubts as to the 
antiquity of this specimen, which seems to have been found 
in disturbed grounds. 

The restriction of the discovery of human fossils to Europe 
is much to be regretted. We have no authority for regarding 
Europe as the starting point of the species, nor as the theatre 
of the formation of the primitive races. We should rather 
seek them in Asia. It was upon the slopes of the Himalaya, 
at the base of the great central mass, that Falconer hoped to 
find tertiary man. Assiduous and persevering search can 
alone verify the prophecies of the eminent paleontologist. 
This task might be performed by some of the learned officers 



292 The Human Species. 

of the English army, by some of the military surgeons,' sent 
out by the great institutions of London. Let us hope that 
they will set to work ; that they will utilize for this end, '.the 
leisure they enjoy when on leave in some sanatarium of the 
Himalayas or Nilgheries. There is every reason to ho£e 
that they will enrich science with important and magnificent 
discoveries. \ 

IV. A few general facts, the interest of which will at once \ 
be evident, may already be disentangled from details without 
leaving European soil. We will first establish the fact, thjat 
in quaternary ages, man did not present that uniformity 6f 
characters, which a recent origin would lead us to expect. 
The species is already composed of several races; these races 
appear successively or simultaneously; they live side by side; 
and perhaps, as M. Dupont has thought, the ivar of races may 
be traced as far back as this period. 

The presence of these clearly characterised human groups 
in the quaternary period, is enough to furnish a strong pre- 
sumption in favour of the previous existence of man. The 
influence of very dissimilar and long-continued actions, can 
alone explain the differences which separate the man of the 
Vezere in France from that of the Lesse in Belgium. 

V. In spite of some opinions which were brought forward 
at a time when science was less advanced, and when terms 
of comparison were wanting, we may assert that no fossil 
skull belongs to the African or Melanesian Negro type. 
The true Negro did not exist in Europe during the quater- 
nary epoch. 

We do not, however, conclude from this that the type 
must have come into existence later, and dates from the 
present geological period. Fresh research, especially in Asia, 
and in countries inhabited by black nations, can alone decide 
this point w T ith certainty. Nevertheless, up to the present 
time, the results of observation have been but little favour- 
able to the opinion of some anthropologists, who have 
regarded the Negro races as anterior to all others. 

VI. In fossil, as well as in modern skulls, we find between 



Cranial Characters. 293 

races /and individuals oscillations of a more or less striking 
character. It is, however, an important fact that these 
oscillations are often of less extent in known fossil races 
thrln those observed in existing populations. I shall only 
qijiote one example. The cephalic index of the most ancient 
European race, taken from the Neanderthal man, in which the 
Characters are exaggerated, is 72 ; that of the La Truchere 
/skull, which belongs to the latter part of the quaternary 
period, is 84 '3 2, a difference of 12 32. Now, at the present 
time, the mean cephalic index of the Esquimaux is 69 '30, 
that of South Germans 86*20, a difference of 16 '90. Thus, 
between the two extreme races separated by the greater 
part of the glacial period, the oscillation of the cephalic 
index is less than between two modern contemporary races. 
Moreover, the latter range between wider limits, both above 
and below the mean, than the two fossil races. This fact 
may perhaps be explained by several considerations, which I 
cannot enter into here. 

I should, moreover, observe that the Lagoa Santa skull 
found by Lund, and which has just been described by MM. 
Lacerta and Peixoto, effaces in a great measure the dif- 
ferences which I have just pointed out. According to the 
Brazilian savants, its cephalic index is 69'72, descending 
almost as low as the mean index of the Esquimaux. 

It is interesting to find that this smaller variability of 
fossil races is established in one of the very characters which 
has been the principal cause of the comparisons of some of 
our inferior existing races with apes. Among quaternary 
skulls there are some which may be considered as presenting 
the mean decree of orthognathism of the white races them- 
selves. The Nagy-sap skull, the No. 1 of the Trou du frontal, 
one of the women of Grenelle, etc., may be quoted as 
examples. Others, such as the No. 2 of the Trou du frontal, 
another woman of Grenelle, the old man of Cro-Magnon, 
several crania from Solutre, are more or less prognathous. 
There are some which equal, or even exceed, in this respect 
the mean of our Negro races. Nevertheless, there are none 



294 The Human Species. 

which attain a degree of prognathism equal to that presented 
by certain examples of the inferior Australian types, or o« f the 
Kaffir race. * 

Another order of facts, which, without possessing the im- 
portance of the preceding, are still of real value, presettt 
similar results. I allude to the stature and to its variation^. 
M. Hamy has determined it by the measurement of tntf 
femur and humerus. It appears from his investigations^ 
that, the maximum presented by the Mentone skeleton is j 
1*85 m. (606ft.), and the minimum, taken from one of they 
Furfooz skeletons, is 1*50 m. (4*92 ft.) The difference between 
these two numbers, 0'35 m. (1*14 ft.), is far smaller than that 
which exists between the extremes of the table given above. 

The mean of the numbers found by M. Hamy, 1*764 m. 
(5*839 ft.), places the race of Cro-Magnon very near to the 
Patagonians of Musters ; but the Furfooz race, with its mean of 
1530 m. (5*019 ft.), stands well above the Bosjesmans and Min- 
copies. It occupies almost the same position as the Lapps. 

Oscillations have taken place in time as well as in space. 
The most ancient race is not the tallest. The skeletons of 
Neanderthal and Brux give a -mean of only 1 705 m. 
(5.593 ft.). The race of Cro-Magnon, superior in height to 
all others, is chronologically intermediate between them. 

The preceding generalizations rest, it is true, upon a 
number of observations as yet too limited to be regarded as 
conclusive. But they at least confute some assertions, and 
tend to dissipate more than one prejudice. 

VII. Dolichocephalic or brachycephalic, large or small, or- 
thognathous or prognathous, quaternary man is always man 
in the full acceptance of the word. Whenever the remains 
have been sufficient to enable us to form an opinion, we 
have found the foot and the hand which characterised our 
species, the vertebral column has displayed the double cur- 
vature to which Lawrence ascribes such great importance, 
and which was made by Serres the attribute of the human 
kingdom, as he understood it. The more we study the 
subject, the more are we convinced that every bone of the 



General Characters. 295 

skeletc/n, from the most massive to the smallest, carries with 
it, in 'its form and proportions, a certificate of origin which it 
^s irripossible to mistake. 

P->y reason of its special importance, the skull deserves con- 
sideration for a moment from this point of view. 

/ We will first state that all the bones of the modern human 
s/kull are to be found in the fossil skull under the same 
forms, and presenting the same relations. Whether we con- 
sider them separately or as a whole, they cannot fail to 
awaken the recollection of what we see around us every day. 
Even the immense development of the superciliary ridges in 
the Neanderthal man cannot disguise the entirely human 
character of this exceptional skull, which I shall presently 
discuss more at length. 

In all fossil races we find the essentially human character 
of the predominance of the cranium over the face. With 
them, as with us, the bony framework which contains the 
brain becomes longer, narrower, or shorter, at the same 
time increasing in size ; it rises or is flattened, but always 
preserves a capacity comparable to that of the crania of the 
present day. In the Neanderthal cranium, which has been 
termed the most brutal known, the cranial capacity, cal- 
culated by men who, we may be sure, did not wish to 
exaggerate, was as much as 1220 cubic centimetres (74*420 
cub. in.). Even M. Schaaffhausen considers it as equal to 
that of the Malays, and superior to that of Hindoos of 
small stature. In the Brazilian skull from Lagoa Santa 
it is 1388 cubic centimetres (84'66 cub. in.). 

We can, therefore, with perfect safety apply to the fossil 
man, with Avhich we are acquainted, the words of Huxley : 
" Neither in quaternary ages nor at the present time does 
any intermediary being fill the gap which separates man 
from the Troglodyte. To deny the existence of this gap 
would be as reprehensible as absurd." 

The eminent naturalist who wrote this sentence did not 
the less seize every occasion which presented itself to point 
out, in the different human races, what are called simian 



296 . The Human Species. 

traits and characters. Is there then in Huxley am un- 
fortunate contradiction ? Evidently not. It is in his <case, 
as in that of all true naturalists, only an abuse of language, 
against which I have already protested. Belonging to 'the 
white race, which they naturally regard as the normal ty L ?e, 
confining their attention to the very substantial anatomical- 
similarities which exist between the man and the ape, the\y 
compare constantly and solely the white on the one handl 
with the anthropoid ape on the other. They forget thatj 
the oscillations of morphological characters, the inevitable; 
result of the formation of the human races, must necessarily 
sometimes increase and sometimes diminish, in however 
small a degree, the distance which separates the extreme 
terms ; they allow themselves to employ these figurative 
expressions, and I should let them pass without comment 
were they not sometimes understood literally, either volun- 
tarily or involuntarily. We know that the English 
naturalist has himself been obliged to protest strongly 
against the conclusions which have been drawn from his 
words or writings. 

Huxley allows that the oscillations are never so great as to 
cause confusion. The human character, therefore, does not 
alter in nature ; it does not become simian. The oscillations 
to which I allude may sometimes be observed in the same 
individual and even in the same bone. In the old man of 
Cro-Magnon, of whom I shall presently speak at some length, 
the femur is the broadest and thickest that M. Broca has 
ever measured in man, and we have found others of still 
greater size. Now, in the chimpanzee this same bone is 
broader and much thinner. Are we therefore justified in 
saying that the femur of Les Eyzies is partly simian and 
partly more than human? 

Finally, what has really been proved, is the conclusion of 
Huxley which I have just quoted. Believers in pithecoid 
man must be content to seek him elsewhere than in the 
only fossil races with which we are acquainted, and to have 
recourse to the unknown. There may be some who will 



Dclichocephali and Brachycephali. 297 

murmur at this necessity, and protest in the name of philo- 
sophy. Let them say what they will, we are content with 
having experience and observation on our side. 

VIII. If we consider the general formation of the skull, 
all fossil races may be referred to two fundamental types ; 
tine one distinctly dolichocephalic, and the other advancing 
l/>y degrees from metacephaly to a very strongly marked 
/orachycephaly. 

Animated discussions were held some years ago to decide 
which of these two types preceded the other. This question 
again is connected with a number of general ideas which 
may be designated as the mongoloid theory. 

At the conclusion of some excavations anion st ancient 
tombs and a few dolmens, Serres announced in 1854 that 
the inhabitants of France reckoned Mongolians among their 
ancestors. Some time previous to this, some Scandinavian 
savants, among others S. Nilson, Retzius, Eschricht, etc., had 
connected with the Lapps, that is to say with the Finnish 
race, round-headed skeletons which had been discovered in 
the neolithic tombs and the peat-bogs of Scania. M. Primer 
Bey, combining these earlier notions with the data recently 
acquired concerning the antiquity of man, has formulated by 
degrees a complete theory, remarkable for its simplicity and 
for the light which it throws upon the whole past history of 
the populations of France. 

In the opinion of this eminent anthropologist, there still 
exists at the present time a vast human formation which he 
designates mongoloid, because it appears to him to be con- 
nected in certain respects with the Mongol type, properly 
so called, whilst at the same time preserving a certain 
number of characters in which it resembles the white races. 
This great race, as it is understood by M. Pruner Bey, 
occupies the greater portion of the north of the old continent, 
and extends even into America. It is, moreover, represented 
in the centre and south of Europe by several more or less 
isolated groups, such as the Basques. Certain historical 
populations, such as the Ligurians, have belonged to it. 



298 The Human Species. 

There is every indication of its Laving once occupiW the 
whole of Europe. Now, this race itself is descended .from 
the primitive quaternary race, as it is known to us through 
the fossil skulls found by M. Dupont at Furfooz in the valley 
of the Lesse. The parentage and filiation of these ratfes 
appear to M. Pruner Bey to be attested by the general forma 
of the skull and by its proportions, which in all these race as 
are more or less brachycephalic. . \ 

The opponents of these general views brought forward the 
existence of the crania found in the Neanderthal in Prussia/J 
in the Engis cave in Belgium, in the tufa beds of La Denise 
in Auvergne, in the loess of the Rhine at Eguisheim in 
Alsace. All these heads are dolichocephalic. They were said 
to be more ancient than those of Furfooz. But at this time 
there were doubts of a different nature with regard to nearly 
all these bones which might have appeared legitimate, and 
the theory of M. Pruner Bey gained by this means many 
strong adherents. When writing in 1875 my Rapport sur 
les progres de V Anthropologic, I felt obliged to ascribe 
anteriority to the brachycephalic type, though at the same 
time making formal reservations, especially in favour of the 
Eguisheim skull. The discovery at Cro-Magnon, in Perigord, 
which followed soon after, showed how carefully we must 
guard against drawing too hasty conclusions. It was evident, 
that, in presence of these great dolichocephali, incontestably 
anterior to the men of the Lesse, the mongoloid theory must 
undergo serious modifications which I did not hesitate to 
acknowledge. 

Since then science has been enriched by new discoveries, 
and many points have been cleared up. The old beds of the 
Seine, studied with remarkable intelligence by M. Belgrand, 
have furnished us with a relative chronometer, the indica- 
tions of which have been fully appreciated by M. Hamy. 
The work presented by him at the Stockholm Congress 
leaves no room for doubt. Till the present time the dolicho- 
cephalic type only has been found in the lowest gravels of 
the plain of Grenelle. It is therefore represented by the 



Dolichocephali and Brachycephali. 299 

Canst'ddt race. It reappears in the form of the Cro-Magnon 
race, r .in the alluvial beds at the level of and below the 
erratic blocks at a depth of from 3 to 4 m. (10 to 13 ft.). 
Ski ills which approach more or less to the brachy cephalic 
type are only found above this level at a depth of from 
2/0O m. to 1-40 m. (8 ft. 2 in. to 4 ft. 7 in.). 
/ The superposition, and consequently the succession of 
/types, is here evident. Does this authorise us to consider 
(the dolichocephalic type as having everywhere preceded the 
^brachycephalic ? We ought perhaps still to retain some 
doubts on this point. Some fragments, belonging probably 
to the latter, have been discovered at Clichy, very little 
above a cranial vault of the Canstadt race, and the beautiful 
skull from Nagy-sap in Hungary was obtained from a well 
characterized loess, the age of which does not however appear 
to have been determined. 

Perhaps, when fresh facts are forthcoming to dispel the 
latest doubts, we shall find that the two types appeared at 
almost the same time upon the lands which were one day to 
become Europe ; but at present everything argues in favour 
of the anteriority of the dolichocephali. In America the only 
known fossil skull leads to the same conclusion. 

However this may be, the mongoloid theory can no 
longer be accepted as absolute. The man of Cro-Magnon 
and that of Furfooz cannot be placed in the same group, and 
considered as belonging to the same race. The idea of M. 
Pruner Bey is, nevertheless, partly true ; and the honour of 
having connected living with fossil populations cannot be 
denied to this eminent anthropologist. Still, what he has 
said of one race must be applied to the rest. The inhabi- 
tants of Western Europe are connected with the quaternary 
period, not by a single root, but by six at least, and perhaps 
more. 

IX. A methodical distribution of the different races of a 
species is never an easy task. The difficulty is very strongly 
felt in the study of living human races ; it is still greater in 
dealing with fossil races. Even if the materials were as 



300 The Hitman Species. 

abundant as they are rare, we no longer have the perfect 
individual, and cannot attempt to apply the natural method; 
we are forced to be content with a systematic classification. 
This is what M. Hamy and I have been obliged to do ; i^nd 
without sharing the absolute opinions which were once ad- 
vanced by Retzius, we took the general form of the skull us 
the starting point for our classification. In ^so doing wk 
have, morever, only imitated palaeontologists in their studies\, 
upon fossil animals. 

We have already seen that considerations drawn from this,' 
method lead to a division of fossil man into two groups, tltie 
one dolichocephalic, and the other brachycephalic. The Lagoa 
Santa skull, which must from all appearance be the type of a 
distinct race, is evidently connected with the former. The 
accounts of this fossil are, however, at present so incomplete, 
that I cannot stop to consider it in such a rapid sketch as 
this. . 

In these two fundamental groups differences exist side by 
side with the common character. In the former these differ- 
ences are very great and strongly marked ; they are generally 
less so in the latter. Thus we have clearly distinguished the 
two dolichocephalic t}^pes, while we have placed in the same 
chapter, and as it were in a kind of family, part at least of 
the brachycephalic races. 

Several objections may be raised against this nomencla- 
ture, of which we are well aware. . We understood perfectly 
that the skull of La Truchere is as distinct from those 
of Furfooz as the Neanderthal skull is from that of Cro- 
Magnon. On the one hand, however, this skull is the ex- 
treme limit of a graduated series, from which it seemed to 
us difficult to detach it ; on the other, this fossil, at the time 
when we were writing, was perfectly unique. Even at the 
present time it has only again been met with in the neolithic 
period. Thus, in giving it a place in our table, we did not 
wish to separate in an absolute manner an individual case. 

As to the other types which we have placed in the same 
chapter, they form a true natural group, each at the same 



Dolichocephali and Brachy cephalic 301 

time having its special characters, which by careful study we 
are a^le to recognise. The races may, therefore, be clearly 
defined. The Grenelle race, especially, will always be very 
distinct from the two Furfooz races. Nevertheless, we here 
no aonger meet with decisive characters which strike us at 
the first glance, and the ethnical affinities are evidently 
cl/jser. It will, perhaps, at some future time be possible to 
t| ace these three branches to the common source from which 
t'hey have all sprung. In short, we must represent the 
present state of our knowledge without interfering with the 
rights of the future. Our nomenclature satisfies, we believe, 
this condition. 

We admit then two dolichocephalic races, those of Canstadt 
and of Cro-Magnon. The more or less brachycephalic races are 
four in number. Under the title of Furfooz races we have 
included two races discovered in that famous locality. The 
Grenelle race and that of La Truchere also take their names 
from that of the localities where they were found. 

Let us rapidly review all these races. 



V 
CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE CANSTADT RACE. \ 

I. The name of this race is that of the village near whic/a 
the first human fossil was found. In 1700, Duke Eberhtai 
Ludwig of Wurtemberg excavated a Roman oppidum in the 
neighbourhood of Stuttgard. A portion of the cranial vault 
of a man was discovered in the midst of a number of animal 
bones. Geology and palaeontology were, however, still in 
their infancy ; and the nature of this precious fragment 
was unknown till Jaeger, in 18o5, recognised its value as an 
argument in favour of the coexistence of man with the great 
extinct mammals. After close study, thanks to the kind- 
ness of M. Fraas, M. Hamy and I have been able, without 
any difficulty, to connect it with the famous Neanderthal 
skull. 

II. The latter was discovered in 1857 in a small cavern 
near Diisseldorf. The skeleton was perfect. Unfortunately, 
the workmen who discovered it, broke and dispersed the 
bones, of which part only were saved by Dr. Fuhlrott. When 
exhibited the same year at the Congress of Bonn, they became 
the subject of long continued study and discussion. M. Schaaff- 
hausen, although himself sometimes going beyond the truth, 
took his position from the first upon the right ground. Some 
anatomists wished, however, to consider this specimen as a 
special species, and even a fresh genus. It was especially 
considered as intermediate between man and apes, and here 
and there traces may still be found of these opinions. 

The only cause of these exaggerations is a feature, striking 
it is true, which is presented by this cranial vault. In the 
Neanderthal man the frontal sinuses have an exceptional 



The Neanderthal Shell. 303 

develc pment, and the superciliary ridges, almost lost in the 
middle of the glabella, form a most strange protuberance 
above the orbit. This conformation has not failed to be 
compared to the bony ridges which the anthropomorphous 
apyes possess in the same place. Then, starting from this fact, 
it'has been thought necessary to find in the rest of the cranium 
c/haracters in harmony with this simian feature. Stress has 
/been laid upon its slight elevation, the lengthened form, the 
(projection of the occipital region, etc. 

With a little partiality, and by only comparing it with 
modern skulls, which are considered as normal, a separate 
species of being has been made of the Neanderthal man. By 
degrees, however, other crania equally fossil have been con- 
nected with this type. Indeed, in several parts of Europe 
those characters which were too hastily declared to be unique 
have been observed in dolmens in less ancient burial places, 
in historical persons, and even in individuals living at the 
present time. There was, then, no alternative but to con- 
clude that the Neanderthal man belonged to a formation 
which was unquestionably human, to a race, certain features 
of which were merely exaggerated in his case. 

This race is none the less remarkable and perfectly cha- 
racterized. In all individuals of the male sex we find a 
greater or less development of the superciliary prominences, 
which were so striking in the Neanderthal man. The low 
and narrow forehead appears still more receding in conse- 
quence of this contrast. The cranial vault is much flattened. 
Tolerably regular in its two anterior thirds, it rises towards 
the upper portion of the occiput, and is prolonged backwards. 
The entire skull is relatively narrow, and we have already 
seen that the cephalic index descends as low as 72. These 
bones are also remarkable for their thickness, which in 
the Eguisheim cranium reaches 11 millimetres (0*43 in.). 
Some of these features are modified in the female skull. 
The superciliary ridges disappear almost entirely. The 
occipital protuberance, and especially the prominence of its 

upper portion, are much less marked. The cephalic index 
U 



304 The Human Species. 

rises one or two units, but tbe flattening of the vault a v nd the 
other characters are persistent. \ 

The Neanderthal cranium, and all those which may^ also 
be connected with the Canstadt type, are incomplete \and 
without the face. One skull alone, the age of which tin- 
fortunately is not determined with certainty, enables us to ifill 
up this gap. It is that from Forbes Quarry near Gibralta^. 
In this case the cranium, and particularly the forehead, 
exactly coincide with the description given above of the 
Neanderthal cranium. Immense and almost circular orbits/, 
the index of which rises almost to 68*83, well agree with the 
vestiges in the Neanderthal cranium, and hide by their 
external border the temporal region. Below, the malar 
bones descend almost vertically ; the nasal bones are promi- 
nent ; the nasal orifices very broad. The superior maxillary 
bone is sensibly prognathous, and lastly the dental arch is of 
a horse-shoe shape narrowing backwards. The whole is rude 
and massive. A face recently discovered by M. Piette in the 
Gourdan grotto, and which will shortly be described by 
M. Hamy, confirms the connection which we have established 
between the Forbes Quarry skull and the remains of the 
Canstadt race. Found in the inferior beds of the cave, 
among flints of the Moustier type, this specimen reproduces 
with some modifications the characters which we have just 
described. The inferior maxillary bone recalls that of Arcy. 

If these characters are united to those presented by the 
celebrated maxillary bone of Naulette, we must add that the 
chin in the Canstadt man is but slightly prominent, and that 
the lower part of the face was sometimes more peculiar, in 
this respect, than the greater number of the skulls of Negroes 
from Guinea. The researches of M. Hamy have, however, 
shown that the singular maxillary bone discovered by 
M. Dupont, was again only the exaggerated realization of a 
type which is met with elsewhere under considerable modi- 
fications. 

In short, the cranium and face of the Canstadt man must, 
as a rule, have presented a strangely savage aspect. 



The Cans tad I Race. 305 

The body appears to have harmonised with the head. The 
few bones of the limbs, preserved more or less intact, indi- 
cate a, stature of only lm.G8 to lm.72 (5ft. 6in., to 5ft. 8in.); 
yet 'their proportions are athletic. They are very thick 
relatively to their length, and the protuberances and de- 
pressions serving for muscular attachments are remarkably 
developed. Moreover, the tibia discovered in a quarry at 
(Sliehy by M. Bertrand, presented the flattened form which 
lias been designated platycnemic, and the ribs of the 
Neanderthal skeleton were sensibly more rounded than is 
generally the case. 

III. As far as we know at present, the Canstadt race is 
undoubtedly the most ancient European one. It disputed 
the ground with the great extinct mammals, w T ith the 
mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave bear, and the cave 
hyaena. It belongs, therefore, to the earliest ages of the 
quaternary epoch. In the opinion of M. SchaafThausen, it 
may be traced to an earlier period still, and is identical with 
tertiary man surviving the latest geological revolution. 

The naturalist who has made us so well acquainted with 
the Neanderthal man, only invokes, in support of his opinion, 
what he calls the typical inferiority of this man, and of 
those who are connected with him. This reason would to 
many be an insufficient motive for the \iew which he has 
taken. But I have observed above, that we are justified in 
assuming that man followed into Europe the great mammals 
which were driven by the cold into more southern countries. 
There can, then, be nothing strange in the idea that the 
race, to which everything points as having been the most 
ancient upon our soil, should also have been the one to 
accomplish the migration. But were the Saint-Prest, the 
Monte Aperto, and especially the Thenay men only its 
pioneers ? The future alone can answer this question either 
in the affirmative or negative. 

However this may be, the remains of human industry 
indicate a well-marked progress since the earliest ages. 
Tools and arms became more numerous and perfect. Deer's 



306 The Human Species. 



antlers and bear's jawbones are worked into weapons and 
tools ; in addition to scrapers and borers, the form of which 
becomes more and more marked, we find knives, chisels,v and 
hammers, set in handles : hatchets of much greater kize, 
sometimes comparatively thin, flat upon one side fcut 
retouched upon the other, sometimes thick and rudely cVut 
on both sides, with or without a handle, belong to the 
moustierien and acheuUen types of M. de Mortillet ; they 
assume definite forms by which we are able to recognised 
several modifications characteristic of certain localities ; the 
arrow is larger and the lance has become a formidable 
weapon. In the midst of the lowest quaternary alluvial 
deposits, we meet with small heaps of coscinopora globularis, 
and other small chalk fossils, all pierced either naturally or 
artificially. The only possible explanation is to consider 
these polypi and shells as having once formed necklaces or 
bracelets, the thread of which has disappeared. Thus, the 
taste for adornment, so largely developed in modern savages, 
was displayed as early as this period. 

If we compare the industries, still very modest, with those 
of the present day, we shall be able to form for ourselves an 
approximate idea of what the race of Canstadt was when it 
occupied perhaps nearly the whole of Europe. With M. 
Lartet we see in the obsidian lances of New Caledonia, the 
flint heads of the lower alluvium of the Somme ; the hatchet 
of certain Australians reminds us, as it did Sir Charles Lyell, 
of the Abbeville hatchet. It is with the latter and with the 
Bosjesmans, that I should be tempted to connect the Nean- 
derthal man and his fellows. Like them, he seems to have 
most frequently led a wandering life. But few of his 
dwellings, or places of meeting, are known to us, such as 
the Naulette cavern. Nothing seems to indicate that he 
had places of burial such as we find later. Everything tends 
to show, moreover, that he lived entirely as a hunter, and 
there is nothing to justify us in supposing that he was 
acquainted with agriculture, which is carried to such a 
remarkable pitch by certain Melanesian negroes. 



The Canstadt Race. 307 

IV. Judging from the geological distribution of the remains 
which have been met with up to the present time, the Can- 
stado race during the quaternary period principally occupied 
the basins of the Seine and the Rhine, and extended perhaps 
as far as Stan gen as in the Bohuslan ; certainly as far as the 
Qlmo in central Italy; as Brux in Bohemia; as the Pyrenees 
i/11 France, and probably as far as Gibraltar. 

This race is not restricted in point of geological time. The 
attention roused by the strange characters of the Neanderthal 
cranium was the means of instituting widespread investiga- 
tions, which have rapidly drawn this specimen from the 
isolation in which, at first, it seemed to be placed. B. Davis, 
Busk, Turner, King, Carter Blake, Pruner Bey, Vogt, Huxley 
and Hamy have been particularly successful in these inves- 
tigations, and have brought to light relations which are now 
generally adopted. 

The result obtained from all these labours is that the Can- 
stadt type, sometimes remarkably pure, and sometimes again 
more or less modified by crossings, is found in the dolmens 
and in the cemeteries of the Gallo-Roman period, in those of 
the Middle Ages, and in modern tombs from Scandinavia to 
Spain, from Portugal to Italy, and from Scotland and Ireland 
to the valley of the Danube, in the Crimea at Minsk, and as 
far as Orenbourg in Russia. This area of habitation com- 
prises, we see, the entire space of time which has elapsed 
from the quaternary period to the present day, and the whole 
of Europe. 

The remark has with justice been made by M. Hamy, that 
there probably exist in India, in the midst of populations 
driven back by the Aryan invasion, representatives of the 
Neanderthal type. Nevertheless, to find, them with any 
degree of certainty, we must go as far as Australia. Our 
investigations have on this point confirmed those of Huxley. 
Among the races of this great island there is one, distri- 
buted particularly in the province of Victoria, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Port Western, which reproduces in a remarkable 
manner the characters of the Canstadt race. 



308 The Human Species, 

Finally, the Canstadt race has had representatives in 
America also. One of the drawings published by v. MM. 
Lacerta and Peixoto leaves no room for doubt on this plaint. 
It represents almost the whole of the upper part of a cranial 
vault found in the province of Ceara, the resemblance V of 
which with that of Eguisheim is very striking. Unfortu- 
nately, the Brazilian naturalists say nothing about the situaV- 
tion of this precious fragment at the moment of its discovery)^ 
and we do not know whether the cranium in question is aj 
fossil or whether it belongs to the present epoch. , - 

V. All these facts, which I have been obliged to sum up 
in a few lines, raise an important problem, and lead to an 
interesting conclusion. 

Are we, in the first place, justified in connecting ethno- 
logically the crania of a more or less Neanderthal type, 
discovered in the Antipodes as well as in Europe, with the 
races, the remains of which have been preserved by the 
quaternary alluvium ? Is not the reproduction of this type 
purely accidental % Do not the most ancient crania owe 
their remarkable characters to some pathological condition, 
to a simple deviation from the normal development, and 
particularly to a premature union of the bones of the 
cranium ? 

These several opinions have been maintained, and the 
latter in particular has had adherents. It rests principally 
upon the condition of the ossified sutures of the Neanderthal 
cranium. But these same sutures may be observed in the 
Canstadt cranium. M. Sauvage found in the almost infantine 
frontal bone of La Denise all the Neanderthal characters, 
although the medio-frontal suture as yet only existed in 
part. It is entirely open in the cranium of the young man, 
discovered in a Poitou tumulus, described by M. Pruner 
Bey, and which it is impossible not to connect with the 
preceding. 

Thus we cannot attribute to the premature ossification of 
the sutures, the form of the crania of the men of Canstadt. 
For a much stronger reason, the clearly marked characters 



The Canstadt Race. 309 

of the forehead and face which remain cannot support this 
theory, and we must allow that the whole constitutes a true 
ethr ical type. 

Since we meet with this type disseminated through time 
and space, always fundamentally the same, and sometimes 
reappearing in all its primitive purity, we are forced to 
clioose between the two following interpretations ; we have 
here either an example of atavism, the importance of which 
s attested by its generality : or else the reproduction of 
these exceptional forms, in the midst of the most varied 
populations and under the most different conditions of life } 
is due to mere chance. 

The laws which govern the formation and maintenance of 
animal and vegetable races, and from which man cannot 
escape, do not allow the admission of the latter conclusion. 
This is why M. Hamy and I have regarded the Canstadt 
race as one of the elements of modern populations. In 
Europe it has blended with succeeding races, but asserts its 
past existence by the marks which it impresses, even at the 
present day, upon some rare individuals. In Australia, 
perhaps, it has some direct descendants in the tribes of 
North Western. 

VI. The epithets brutal and simian, too often applied to 
the Neanderthal cranium, and to those which resemble it, 
the conjectures made with regard to the individual to whom 
they belonged, might lead us to think that a certain moral 
and intellectual inferiority was naturally connected with this 
form of cranium. It can easily be shown that this conclusion 
rests upon a most worthless foundation. 

At the Paris Congress, M. Vogt quoted the example of one 
of his friends, Dr. Emmayer, whose cranium exactly recalls 
that of Neanderthal, and who is nevertheless a highly distin- 
guished lunacy doctor, In passing through the Copenhagen 
Museum, I was struck by the Neanderthal characters 
presented by one of the crania in the collection ; it proved to 
be that of Kay Lykke, a Danish gentleman, who played some 
part in the political affairs of the 17th century. M. Godron 



310 The Human Species. 

has published the drawing of the skull of Saint M»ansuy, 
Bishop of Toul in the 4th century, and this head\ even 
exaggerates some of the most striking features of the Nean- 
derthal cranium. The forehead is still more receding, \the 
vault more depressed, and the head so long that the cephalic 
index is 69*41. Lastly the skull of Bruce, the Scotch herb, 
is also a reproduction of the Canstadt type. \ 

In presence of these facts, we must assuredly acknow-v 
ledge that even the individual whose remains were found in} 
the Neanderthal cave was capable of possessing all the moral 
and intellectual qualities compatible with his inferior soci?al 
condition. 



/ CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE CRO-MAGNON RACE. 

t 

I. In the year 1858, in the valley of the Vezere, near to 
the village of Les Eyzies, which had already been rendered 
famous by the investigations of the elder M. Lartet and 
Christy, the workmen brought to light in the rock-shelter of 
Cro-Magnon the bones of three men, a woman and a child, 
which have been preserved to science by MM. Berton- 
Meyron and Delmares. M. Louis Lartet, to whom the study 
of the deposit had been entrusted, determined their geologi- 
cal age ; MM. Broca and Pruner Bey described them with 
all the precision which we should expect from their know- 
ledge of the subject, and the discussions which arose between 
these two eminent anthropologists, brought the essential 
points still more strongly forward. The Cro-Magnon bones 
thus became classic almost within a day of their discovery ; 
and M. Hamy and I could not do better than group around 
them the human remains which resemble them. This has 
been our reason for choosing the name which we have given 
to our second dolichocephalic race. 

Like the preceding one, this also has its typical individual 
who exaggerates in certain respects the characters of the 
race, and thus presents an extreme term of comparison. 
The contrast is only the more striking. The only character 
common to both the Neanderthal man and the old man of 
Cro-Magnon lies in the proportions of the cranium. The 
cephalic index, here 7376, differs but very slightly, as we 
see at once from what we have already stated. It de- 
scends, moreover, as low as 7005 in a cranium of the same 
race found at Solutre ; it is 70*52 in the famous Engis 



312 The Human Species. 

cranium. It was this elongation from the front backwards 
which led Schmerling to connect the fossil man which he 
had just discovered with the Ethiopian rather than with\ the 
European. This, at least, partly accounts for the the\pry 
which makes the Negro the starting point of our race. 
M. Hamy, in connecting the Engis cranium with the Crd)- 
Magnon type, has added one more fact to those which are ate 
variance with this doctrine. 

In every other respect the Cro-Magnon head and that ofj 
Canstadt are most dissimilar. Instead of a low and retreat-; 
ng forehead above superciliary ridges which remind us of 
the ape, instead of a flattened vault like that of the Nean- 
derthal skull and its companions, we here find a large fore- 
head rising above frontal sinuses but slightly marked, and a 
vault presenting the finest proportions. The frontal bone is 
remarkably developed from before backward. The front o- 
occipital curve is continued with a striking regularity till 
within a short distance above the lambda. It is there bent 
so as to form a surface which is prolonged upon the cerebral 
part of the occipital bone. The cerebral region of the same 
bone is carried abruptly downward, and presents numerous 
strong impressions of muscular insertions. 

This skull, so remarkable for its fine proportion, is also 
remarkable for its capacity. According to M. Broca, who 
could only work under precautions calculated to diminish 
the amount, it is equal to at least 1590 cubic centimetres 
(96'99 cubic inches). I have already remarked that this 
number is far higher than the mean taken from modern 
Parisians ; it is equally so in comparison with the other 
European races. 

Thus, in the savage of quaternary ages, who had to fight 
against the mammoth with stone weapons for arms, we find 
all those craniological characters generally considered as the 
sign of great intellectual development. 

The features of the face are not less striking than those of 
the skull. In the heads which M. Primer Bey calls har- 
monic, a face elongated from above downward corresponds to 



The Cro-Magnon Race. 313 

a skull elongated from behind forward. When there is a 
disagreement between these proportions the head is dys~ 
harmonic. This latter character is very strongly marked in 
the old man of Cro-Magnon. The bizj^gomatic transverse 
diameter acquires an extent rare even in harmonic brachy- 
cephali. In his case the facial index descends as low as 63. 

This exaggeration in breadth is present also in all the 
upper and medial parts of the face. The orbits, almost recti- 
linear at their extremities, are remarkable for their -slight 
elevation, being on the other hand very long. The orbital 
index descends lower than M. Broca has ever known it to be: 
it is only 61. 

But this tendency to breadth does not extend to the 
medial regions or to the inferior portion of the face. The 
nose, the bones of which are boldly projected forward and 
constitute a strongly marked protuberance, is narrow ; from 
its index, 4o*09, it places the old man of Cro-Magnon amongst 
the lepthorhini of M. Broca. The superior maxillary bone is 
equally narrowed relatively to the face which it terminates, 
and the alveolar arch is projected outward in such a manner 
as to produce a very decided prognathism. The inferior 
maxillary bone is especially remarkable for the breadth of its 
ascending branches which, according to the investigation of 
M. Broca, surpass in this respect all other known human 
jaw-bones. The breadth in question is 49 m.m. (l - 93 inch). 
Far from being obliterated and retreating, as in the Canstadt 
race, the slightly triangular chin projects forwards. 

The cephalic characters of the old nian of Cro-Magnon are 
to be found more or less strongly marked in all the men of 
the same race. They are generally modified in the women. 
Thus, even in that specimen, the head of which, unfortunately 
incomplete, was discovered not far from that of the old man, 
we see the beautiful lines of the skull preserved, and the 
forehead even rising a little higher still. But the posterior 
surface is less pronounced, the dysharmony is less strong 
between the skull and the face. The latter is relatively 
longer, the orbits are higher, the nose is broader, and the 



314 The Human Species. 

prognathism is modified. We cannot, however, deny the 
ethnical relation of the two heads which were found together, 
and which thus constitute definite terms of comparison for 
the two sexes. 

The Cro-Magnon race was tall The mean height deduced 
from the measurements taken by M. Hamy upon a skeleton 
and the isolated bones of five men is 1*78 m. (5 feet 10 inches. 
With the old man of Cro-Magnon it was about 182 m. (5 
feet 11'6 inches), and with the Mentone man, whose skeleton 
was found by M. Riviere entire and in situ, it was as much 
as 185 m. (6 feet 0*8 inches). The Cro-Magnon woman 
measured 1*66 m. (5 feet 53 inches). These bones and all 
those which have been connected with them, moreover, give 
indications of a remarkably strong race. They are thick 
and solid. In all cases the muscular impressions are very 
strongly marked. In the old man of Cro-Magnon the femurs 
are also the broadest and thickest that M. Broca has ever 
measured, as we have already remarked. The linea aspera 
is also of an unusual breadth and thickness, and forms a sort 
of prominent column or buttress. 

Finally, in the Cro-Magnon men, a fine open forehead, a 
large, narrow, and aquiline nose, must have compensated 
for any strangeness which the face may have acquired from 
the probable smallness of the eyes, from very strong mas- 
seters, and from a slightly lozenge- shaped contour. With 
these features, the type of which is in no way disagreeable, 
and allows of real beauty, this magnificent race combined 
a high stature, powerful muscles, and an athletic constitu- 
tion. It seems to have been fitted in every way for 
struggling against the difficulties and perils of savage life. 

II. We have already seen that the Cro-Magnon race was 
discovered immediately above that of Canstadt in the allu- 
vial deposits of Crenelle. It is therefore very old, and was 
contemporary with the great mammals, now either extinct 
or emigrated. More sociable, doubtless, and more settled 
than the preceding race, it inhabited caverns where it left 
numerous specimens of its handiwork ; it buried its dead 



The Troglodytes of the Vdzere. 315 

under the shelters where they are now found. A great 
number of eminent investigators have explored these scientific 
quarries. I cannot enumerate them all here, but there is 
one name, the omission of which would be unpardonable, 
that, namely, of Edouard Lartet. It is well known with what 
persevering intelligence, sometimes alone, sometimes accom- 
panied by his friend Christy, this man, as modest as he is 
learned, has explored these caves, what treasures he has 
obtained from them, and the prudence and sagacity which 
he showed in the interpretation of his splendid discoveries, 
and only justice was done to him in awarding him the title 
of founder of human palaeontology. 

Thanks to him, and to those who have followed in his 
steps, we possess the essential elements of a history of the 
Cro-Magnon race. Almost without leaving this valley of the 
Vezere, the name of which stands so high in anthropology, 
we can, as M. Broca has done, follow it step by step. In 
fact, from the village of Les Eyzies to the rock-shelter of 
Moustier, within a distance of from seven to eight miles we 
meet with no less than eight human settlements, all of which 
have become more or less celebrated from the different 
records which they have furnished. They are the Moustier 
cavern, the Moustier shelter, the shelter of La Madeleine, 
the Cro-Magnon shelter and burial-place, the Laugerie-Haute 
shelter, the Laugerie-Basse shelter, the Gorge d'JEwfer cavern, 
and the Les Eyzies cavern. 

The most ancient, that of Moustier, is connected b} r its 
fauna with the lower alluvium (bas niveaux)-of Grenelle, and 
dates at least from the close of the age of the bear ; that of 
La Madeleine cannot be placed much before the present 
epoch. Between these two extremes are ranged the other 
six, and altogether they mark out, so to speak, the two last 
periods of the quaternary ages. Yet to obtain a clear idea of 
the social and intellectual development of the race, to learn 
how far it complied with the modifications of the climate, 
and what progress or what decadence these modifications 
imposed upon it, we must consult the evidences which 



<"> 



1 6 The Human Species 



it has left in many other localities, and especially in the 
caves and shelters of Bruniquel, in the burial-places of 
Solutre, in the caves of Gourdan, Duruty, and of L'Homme- 
Mort, etc. 

The men who frequented the Moustier cavern do not seem 
to have been much superior to the Canstadt race, with which 
they were perhaps associated, and whose industries they 
closely imitated. Their conditions of existence were almost 
identical with those of the preceding age. They lived 
amono; the great mammals which served them for food. 
The horse and the aurochs were the general objects of their 
sport. Bat they fed upon the mammoth, the bear, and even 
the lion and the cave hyaena. To meet such enemies as 
these they employed a species of spear-head and small lance, 
smooth upon one side, cut upon the other, and sharp at the 
edges, constituting undoubtedly a formidable weapon. This 
special form characterises the Moustier type of M. de Mor- 
tillet. The hunters of this epoch cut their arrows upon the 
same model, but rarely made use of them ; they seem to 
have despised birds and small game ; the other implements 
remained almost the same as in the preceding age. 

At Cro-Magnon, the progress is evident. Our fine old 
man and his companions had arms and implements of flint, 
which were more numerous, more varied and less massive. 
To judge from the remains of their kitchen, they must have 
made frequent use of the bow, to obtain birds and small 
mammals, while they still attacked large animals, and 
especially the horse, with the lance, spear-head, and perhaps 
the dagger. 

At Laugerie-Haute, on the Yezere, at Solutre, in the 
Maconnais, and other contemporary settlements; the cutting 
of the flints reached a degree of perfection which was truly 
marvellous. Sometimes undoubtedly old types reappeared 
side by side with forms modified by intelligent experience, 
and by perfected workmanship. Still the predominance of 
the latter is so marked, that it distinctly characterises this 
epoch. The points of the lances and javelins are tapered off 



TIU Cro-Magnon Race — Industry. 317 

more or less in the shape of a walnut, laurel, or plantain leaf. 
They are very pointed, and become perfectly symmetrical. 
The arrow-heads are the object of most particular care. M. de 
Ferry has very well shown that the general form, the weight, 
the angle, etc., were calculated in such a manner as to be 
adapted to the different distances of flight, to the necessities of 
the chase. All these tools, finely cut upon both sides, present, 
moreover, a much more remarkable finish than what we meet 
with in any of the other implements. They were worthy 
6f being taken for one of the terms of comparison admitted 
by M. de Mortillet, and constitute his Solutre type.- 

Essentially hunters, and certainly warriors, the men of 
tins-period bestowed their chief attention upon their arms. 
They probably felt a certain pride in possessing the finest or 
the best cut weapons ; but the relative indifference which 
they betrayed in the matter of other objects, shows us that 
their chief aim in the finish of their work was to make their 
weapons more terrible by increasing their power of penetra- 
tion. Several fragments of bone, discovered in places remote 
from each other, and belonging to several periods, prove that 
these weapons of flint, handled by strong hands, left nothing 
to be desired in this respect. I shall only mention the verte- 
bra of a reindeer, which had been pierced through by a lance 
or a javelin/and a human tibia, through the head of which an 
arrow has passed near to the kneepan. In both cases the 
broken flint has remained, testifying to the good quality of 
the weapon and to the strength with which it was used. 

At the time of the deposition of the upper river gravels, 
and when the predominance of the reindeer was most marked, 
the industry of the men of Cro-Magnon underwent a sudden 
change. Till then flint, and, in its absence, other hard 
stones, had furnished both the implement and the instrument 
formed by the aid of the former. Doubtless from the 
earliest times, bones and the antlers of the stag or reindeer, 
had been used from time to time ; but they only played an 
almost insignificant part in the manufacture of tools or 
weapons. During the epoch of which we are .speaking, they 



3 1 8 The Human Species, 

acquired a growing importance, and soon furnished almost 
the only material for weapons. Flint was now only used 
to make the implements, and these, on the other hand, became 
more numerous, and fitted for the most varied uses. It was 
with flints that the troglodytes of Les Eyzies, of Laugerie- 
Basse, of La Madeleine, and a great number of other settle- 
ments, sawed and carved their reindeer antlers to make 
strong harpoons, which were barbed on one side only. It 
was with flint that they pointed needles not much longer 
than our own, and pierced the eye. In some specimens the 
latter is so small that the piercing of it remained a problem, 
till Lartet reproduced it with his own hand, using one of the 
implements which he had discovered. But the most charac- 
teristic object of the Magdalenian type is the arrow-head, 
regularly barbed on both sides, the teeth of which contain 
little channels, probably intended as the receptacle of some 
poisonous substance. 

The succession of industries which I have just pointed out 
is, moreover, by no means invariable. As the investigations 
and discoveries increase in number, we are more and more 
impressed by the fact that the several colonies of the race 
under consideration, yielding to local necessities, or carried 
aw 7 ay by the accidents of their development, do not present 
an unintelligible uniformity. The last excavations carried 
out at Solutre by MM. Arcelin and the Abbe Ducrost, 
show arms and instruments of the Magdalenian type which 
are anterior to those of the Solutre type. In this epoch, 
as at the present time, there existed a certain diver- 
sity which explains the coincidence, in point of time, of 
different industrial types among this population of similar 
origin . 

III. The lighter, more trusty, and more varied weapons, 
announce a change in the life of our troglodytes. They 
continue, it is true, to hunt large game when it comes in 
their way ; a few rare mammoths, surviving the climatic 
modifications which were going on, still fell under their 
hand ; the horse also often contributed to their repast. The 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Life. 319 

reindeer, however, largely predominated in the debris of their 
kitchen. Mixed with them are found the remains of small 
mammals, such as the hare and the squirrel. Birds also 
began to be used for food to a considerable extent. From 
the bones discovered in the single grotto of Gourdan, so 
admirably explored by M. Piette, M. Alph. Edwards has been 
able to distinguish twenty distinct species. Lastly, the men 
of the Magdalenian age fed also upon fish ; but fishing again 
was to them a kind of hunting. They evidently did not use 
the hook, and only harpooned the larger species, the salmon 
in Perigord, and the pike in the Pyrenees. 

The conveyance of the large animals which fell under their 
hand to their usual dwelling place, would have been too 
much even for such stalwart hunters. They cut them up 
upon the spot, leaving only the skeleton of the trunk. We 
rarely find in the caves more than the bones of the head and 
limbs, which, again, are almost always broken. Like all 
savages, the troglodytes of the Vezere held the brain and 
marrow in high estimation. The long bones which enclosed 
the latter have evidently been split in a methodical manner, 
with a view to preserving the contents. MM. Lartet and 
Christy even think that a special implement was employed 
in eating these delicate morsels. A kind of spatula made 
from the antler of a reindeer, with a conical, richly carved 
handle, hollowed and rounded at the extremity, has been 
regarded by them as a marrow spoon. 

The large amount of ashes and burnt wood found in the 
Vezere deposits, leaves no room for doubt that fire was used 
in the cooking of food. The manner in which it was used 
is, however, rather a difficulty. No trace of pottery has been 
found among these hunters, and there is nothing to show 
that they were acquainted with the oven of the Polynesians. 
They must, therefore, have gone to work like the Siberians, 
who, at the close of the last century, had only vessels of 
leather or of wood, and nevertheless were able to boil 
the water which they contained by throwing in highly 
heated flints. 



320 The Human Species. 

We have no reason for thinking that the Cro-Magnon man 
was a cannibal. We find among the debris of his kitchen, 
none of those long bones, broken so as to extract the marrow, 
which could not but have been mixed with those of the large 
mammals, had human flesh formed even accidentally part 
of their repast. Nevertheless M. Piette has found at 
Gourdan several remains of human skulls, bearing the mark 
of flint knives, and the trace of blows which seem to have 
broken them. Axes and atlases in great quantity, jaw-bones 
broken or whole, accompany these fragments of the cranial 
vault. These facts may justify the opinion of M. Piette. 
The Gourdan warriors after having killed an enemy, 
doubtless brought his head home, scalped it, and perhaps 
mixed the brain in some kind of pottage, as some of the 
tribes of the Philippine islands do at the present day. But 
they did not eat the flesh of the vanquished, whose decapi- 
tated corpses were probably left on the field of battle. 

IV. Needles, like those which I have mentioned above, 
would not have been made had there not been something 
to sew. This fact alone suggests the idea of clothes. The 
chase furnished the raw material. The art of preparing 
skins must have been carried by these tribes as far as it has 
been by the Red-Skins, to judge from the number of scrapers 
and smoothers which have been found in their stations. 
The marks left by flint knives at the points where long 
tendons taken from the limbs of the reindeer were inserted, 
show how the thread was procured. The clothes, when 
sewn, must have been ornamented in various ways, as they 
are by savages of the present day. Upon the skeleton dis- 
covered at Laugerie-Basse by M. Massenat, twenty pierced 
shells were found placed in pairs upon different parts of the 
body. This was not an instance of either necklace or bracelet, 
but of ornaments arranged in an almost symmetrical manner 
upon a garment. The skeleton of Mentone, discovered by 
M. Riviere, presented a similar appearance. 

Thus the taste for adornment, so striking at the present 
day in the most savage as also in the civilized nations 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Arts. 321 

existed in the troglodytic tribes of the quaternary epoch. 
There are, moreover, numerous proofs of this fact. The 
fragments of necklaces, bracelets, etc., have been found in a 
great number of stations. In most cases marine shells, 
sometimes fossil and obtained from the tertiary beds, 
formed these ornaments. But the Cro-Magnon man com- 
bined with these the teeth of the large carnivora; he cut 
also with the same intention plates of ivory, certain soft or 
hard stones, and even made beads of clay which were 
merely dried in the sun. Finally, he tatooed himself, or 
at least painted his body with the oxides of iron or man- 
ganese, small stores of which have on several occasions been 
found in different stations, and which have left their mark 
upon the bones of some skeletons, for example, upon that of 
Mentone. 

V. The Cro-Magnon race has up to this point shown 
scarcely any superiority over the hunting tribes of America, 
unless perhaps it is in the dexterity which they displayed 
in flint cutting. But the artistic instincts which they 
showed almost from their first appearance, and the point 
to which they carried drawing and sculpture in the Made- 
leine age, gives them quite an exceptional position amongst 
those nations whose evolution has been arrested at the 
lowest stage of social life. The relative alleviation of 
climatic conditions, the diminution of large and ferocious 
animals involving the multiplication of useful species and 
especially that of the reindeer, placed at this epoch the 
Cro-Magnon man in conditions of welfare unknown to his 
predecessors. He profited by it in developing in a most 
unexpected manner his very superior talents. 

As a general rule the greater number of sculptures repre- 
senting animals leave, it is true, much to be desired. We 
can indeed recognise the reindeer represented in high 
relief; nor would it be difficult to recognise as a mammoth 
the little carving made from the antler of the reindeer 
discovered at Montastruc. Nevertheless, these specimens 
would give but a poor idea of Magdalenean art. The ivory 



o 



22 The Human Species. 



dagger handles found by M. Peccadeau de l'lsle by the 
side of the mammoth fortunately confirm this impression. 
In both a reindeer is represented crouching, the legs bent, 
the head stretched out and the antlers lying along the 
body so as not to inconvenience the hand which should 
hold it. The attitudes are so natural, and the proportions 
so exact, that a decorative sculptor of the present day, in 
treating the same subject, could scarcely do better than 
copy his antique predecessor. 

Drawing or rather engraving was much more commonly 
practised than sculpture. It offers also more points of 
interest. Armed with their point of flint, the quaternary 
artists engraved in turn the bone and the antlers of the 
reindeer, ivory from the mammoth, and stones of different 
kinds. Sometimes they endeavoured to reproduce the plants 
or animals around them ; at other times they followed their 
own fancy, and made designs of ornamentation, in which we 
meet with almost all the principles reinvented many 
centuries afterwards. The multiplicity and the variety of 
this kind of engraving show much imagination and a real 
faculty of invention. 

The faculty of imitation is equally striking in drawings 
representing real objects, animals in particular. They are 
often very remarkable for firmness of touch, showing a 
perfect comprehension of the whole, and reproducing the 
details with such exactness that we are not only able 
unerringly to recognise the group but even the species 
represented by the artist. Thus we have found successively 
the ox, the aurochs, the horse, the reindeer, the elk, the 
stag, the steinbock, a cetacean, certain fishes, etc. After 
these faithful representations, the models of which we know, 
there is no reason to doubt the exactness with which 
certain extinct animals have been drawn. This very simple 
consideration gives great interest to the drawing of the 
cave bear found by M. Garrigou upon a piece of Massat 
schist, and to those of the mammoth discovered by M. 
Lartet in the Perigord caves. Thanks to the latter and to 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Arts. 323 

what we know from the mammoths preserved in ice in 
Siberia, an artist of the present day might produce in 
almost exact detail the portrait of this giant of the ancient 
world, which disappeared so long ago. 

VI. Man figures very rarely in these drawings or sculptures, 
and the representations of our species which have been met 
with up to the present time, display a relative inferiority 
which is indeed most strange. The small ivory statue found 
by M. de Vibraye at Laugerie-Basse scarcely testifies to 
even the infancy of the art. It is a woman, whose sex we 
are able to recognise by a detail doubtless exaggerated, but 
long, stiff and with very strange protuberances at the lower 
extremity of the loins. The crouching human form found 
by M. l'Abbe Landesque in the same locality is still more 
ill-formed. The drawings of men or women are scarcely 
better, and the contrast sometimes presented upon the same 
specimen between them and drawings of animals is most 
strange. M. l'Abbe Landesque's reindeer woman is grotesque, 
whilst the hind legs of the animal, which alone have been 
preserved, present all the qualities which I have noticed 
above and which may be observed in the splendid horse's 
head engraved upon the other side of the bone. In M. 
Massenat's aurochs man, the animal has much beauty both 
in form and movement ; the man is stiff, without proportion 
or truth. 

This contrast is too great and too constant to be accidental. 
It must be the result of a cause arising perhaps from some 
superstitious idea similar to certain modern superstitions. 
When Catlin had finished his first portrait of the Red-Skin, 
some of the tribe looked upon him as a dangerous sorcerer, 
who had robbed the model of part of himself. Perhaps some 
similar idea may have prevented the artists of the Vezere 
from studying the human figure, for it always happens that 
when they attempt to reproduce it their graving tool hesi- 
tates, and loses all its good qualities. 

These imperfect representations, therefore, tell us nothing 
of the appearance or proportions of the race. The most we can 



324 The Human Species. 

say, if we accept the interpretations of MM. l'Abbe Landesque 
and Piette, is that it was remarkably hairy. But this opinion, 
which rests chiefly upon the drawing of the reindeer woman, 
seems to me to be contradicted by that of the aurochs man, 
whose small pointed beard scarcely extends as far as the 
angle of the jaw-bone. The horizontal hatching upon the 
legs and body cannot, it appears to me, be taken for hairs, 
because it crosses at right angles the direction which would 
have been taken by the latter. I should much rather con-, 
sider them as lines of painting, a kind of decoration which 
we know to have been held in high estimation amongst 
these tribes. 

VII. However bad they may be, the drawings which I 
have just described furnish us, nevertheless, with some facts 
respecting the mode of life pursued by these hunters. That 
of the aurochs man informs us that they followed the largest 
game naked, as is often the case with the Red-Skins, their 
hair raised in a tuft on the top of the head, and armed only 
with the lance or javelin. The whale man is also naked, 
and the immense arm which he stretches out as far as the 
fin of the fish, seems to indicate that he has fought and con- 
quered this monster, which had doubtless run aground in 
some shallow. But, from this fact alone, it follows that the 
quaternary man of Perigord must sometimes have left his 
mountains and travelled as far as the sea-shore. His con- 
temporaries in the Pyrenees did the same, as is proved by 
the drawings of seals discovered in the grottoes of Gourdan 
and Duruthy. 

Again, those deposits which are situated at the greatest 
distance inland have often furnished objects which can only 
have been obtained upon the sea-shore. At Cro-Magnon 
more than three hundred shells of Littorina littorea, an 
oceanic species, have been found. On the other hand the 
Cyprcea rufa and C. lurida found upon the Laugerie-Basse 
skeleton, which I have mentioned above, are unquestionably 
Mediterranean. Sometimes the molluscs peculiar to the two 
regions have been found in the same place. In the Gourdan 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Life. 325 

grotto, in the middle of the central Pyrenees, M. Piette 
found five oceanic species, one Mediterranean, and five 
common to both seas. The fosail shells of the Perigord 
deposits were generally brought from the falun of Touraine, 
those of Gourdan must have been collected, partly in the 
Landes and in the neighbourhood of Dax, and partly near 
Perpignan. In this same grotto M. Piette discovered a 
pumice-stone, which had been used in polishing needles, and 
which he considered had come from the volcanic region of 
Agde, 

From these, and some other analogous facts, M. Piette and 
M. de Mortillet have thought there is sufficient reason to 
suppose that the tribes of the Vezere had no fixed habitation, 
but led a nomad life, visiting in turn the shores of the two 
seas, hunting in the mountains during the summer the game 
of the season, and passing the winter in a warmer climate. 
We cannot adopt this hypothesis. The ever-increasing fauna 
among the cooking debris denotes a population, which, as it 
multiplied in every way, made more and more use of the 
'resources of the country. These same heaps furnished 
Lartet with reindeer bones of every age, amongst which were 
those of young fawns. Our great authority concludes from 
this fact that the tribe was stationary during the entire year, 
and we believe him to be right. The man of Cro-Magnon, 
La Madeleine and Gourdan, must undoubtedly have always 
been within reach of the reindeer, from which they obtained 
nourishment, arms and clothing. But the migrations of this 
animal, under the influence of a but slightly varying mari- 
time climate, could not have been very extensive, and the 
troglodytes of Pe'rigord or the Pyrenees, if they wished 
to keep within its range, would not have had such expedi- 
tions to undertake, as those of the Red-Skins in pursuit of 
the bison. 

This semi-stationary life did not exclude travels by land 
or even by sea. Among the fossil shells found at Laugerie- 
Basse, there are some which could only have come from the 
Isle of Wight. Now, in the age of the reindeer, there was 



326 The Human Species. 

no longer land communication between France and England. 
As M. Fischer has remarked, the presence of these shells in 
a continental station proves the existence of navigation. 

But, can it really have been the man of the Vezere who 
went to seek these objects of adornment on the other side of 
the channel ? It is difficult to believe that these mountain 
tribes could have crossed the sea. It is much more likely 
that this voyage was accomplished by contemporaries, who, 
by long residence on the sea coast, had developed navigating 
instincts. They, doubtless, would bring from the English 
island those shells regarded as precious jewels, which would 
then pass in exchange from hand to hand, till at length they 
reached the valleys of Perigord. Traffic of this kind can 
alone explain this existence of an oyster-shell from the Red 
Sea in the Thayngen grotto explored by M. C. Mayer, near 
to Schaaffhausen. We know, moreover, that shells of the 
Pacific Ocean are in our day brought, by a perfectly similar 
commerce, as far as the tribes of Red-Skins inhabiting the 
shores of the Atlantic. 

VIII. The history of the Cro-Magnon race, founded upon 
the industrial remains which it has bequeathed to us, 
still presents many questions answered in various ways by 
savants of the most different opinions. I shall only point 
them out cursorily. 

Did the quaternary tribes confine themselves to hunting 
those animal species which are subject to us, and by which 
they were then surrounded. Did they never domesticate the 
horse, or the reindeer % 

M. Toussaint has answered the first question in the affir- 
mative, and M. Gervais the second. The accumulation, often 
prodigious, of the bones of these animals is thus explained 
by all. At Solutre, a kind of bone hollow, formed almost 
exclusively of the bones of the horse, surrounds, so to speak, 
the space occupied by hearths and sepultures. It comprises 
the remains of at least forty thousand horses, amongst which 
we only occasionally meet with either foals or old animals. 
The immense majority were killed at the age of from four to 



The Cro-Magnon Race— Domestic Animals. 327 

eight years. This strange accumulation of remains furnished 
by one species, and the choice of animals in their prime, are, 
in the opinion, of M. Toussaint, inexplicable facts, unless we 
admit the existence of great herds from which man could 
draw supplies at will. The arguments brought forward in 
favour of the domestication of the reindeer are almost of the 
same nature. M. Piette, however, admits that the latter, 
long hunted in a wild state, was only domesticated towards 
the close of the quaternar} 7 period. His opinion rests upon 
tike proportion of reindeer bones which increase in number 
almost suddenly in the upper layers of the Gourdan grotto. 
M. Piette also draws attention to certain drawings in which 
reindeer are represented, having upon the neck the appear- 
ance of a halter. 

To these arguments, which are evidently not devoid of 
value, it has been objected that man may very well have 
been able to tame some individuals, without necessarily 
domesticating the species ; that the multiplication and utili- 
sation of certain kinds of game under general and better 
understood conditions, readily account for the preference 
accorded to them at certain periods; and that a practised 
hunter would, without difficulty, choose from among the 
herd the one he wished to kill. All the facts brought 
forward by MM. Gervais, Toussaint, and Piette with regard 
to France, are thus explained without much difficulty. As 
to countries situated more to the north, the facts obtained by 
M. Fraas from the grottoes of Suabia, and his philological 
researches seem to support the opinions of these savants. 
It is evident that the problem of the domestication of the 
horse and the reindeer by quaternary man demands further 
study, and may assume an entirely local character. 

I should say almost the same with regard to social organisa- 
tion. We cannot doubt but that the tribes of La Madeleine 
and of Bruniquel recognised chiefs, and that it was for them 
those daggers of mammoth ivory were carved, of which I 
have spoken above. They were evidently state arms. But 
was this universally the case ? Was there, even amongst 
15 



328 The Human Species, 

these tribes, a true hierarchy, every grade of which was 
marked by certain insignia ? Certain large portions of rein- 
deer antlers, presenting a tolerably uniform appearance, 
diminished in size by hand, and invariably decorated with 
special care, have, it has been thought, offered sufficient 
proof for these facts. In some cases they are whole, in 
others they are pierced at one extremity with from one to 
four round holes, which sometimes encroach upon the original 
drawing. These singular objects are certainly not arms,. 
They have been regarded as commanders' batons, an inter- 
pretation which appears to be plausible. Is it not, however, 
going rather too far, when the number of holes are regarded 
as indicating the dignity of the possessor, from which it 
would follow that these tribes recognised five district grades 
of chiefs ? 

Had the quaternary man in question any belief in another 
life? Had he a religion ? 

There can be no doubt as to the answer to the first of 
these questions. The care bestowed upon burial places 
shows that the hunters of Mentone, as also those of Solutre 
and Cro-Magnon, believed in the wants of their dead beyond 
the tomb. Our acquaintance with the customs of so many 
savage nations of the present epoch forbids any other inter- 
pretation of the interment of food, arms, and ornaments with 
the body. 

The difficulty is greater in solving the problem of religion. 
It is very probable that the man of this age had a belief 
similar to that which we know to exist among nations lead- 
ing almost the same kind of life. We can scarcely help 
regarding a great number of small objects, pierced so as to 
enable them to be worn round the neck, as amulets, nor 
doubt that the troglodytes of the Vezere or the Pyrenees 
attributed to them virtues analogous to those which are even 
now ascribed to them by many savage tribes. M. Piette dis- 
covered one of these amulets consisting of a plate pierced in 
the centre, from which diverging lines took their rise; he 
found a similar emblem repeated three times upon a com- 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Social State. 329 

inlanders baton. He admits that they are so many represen- 
tations of the sun, and I very willingly accept this inter- 
pretation. But does he not exceed the limits of legitimate 
induction, when he concludes from this fact that the man of 
Gourdan worshipped this heavenly body, and invented the 
Sun God, afterwards discovered by the Egyptians and Gauls. 

IX. Finally the race of Cro-Magnon was not wanting in 
either beauty or intelligence. Taking its intelligence as a 
whole, it seems to me to present striking points of resem- 
blance with the Algonquin race, as represented by the 
earliest travellers, and more especially by missionaries who 
have spent much time amongst these Red-Skins. It had 
undoubtedly both its good and bad qualities. Scenes of 
violence took place upon the banks of the Vezere, as is 
proved by the hatchet-cut in the skull of the Cro-Magnon 
woman. On the other hand, the burial places of Solutre', 
though containing many indented male and female heads, 
seem to show that old age received particular attention, and 
was, therefore, honoured among these tribes. This race 
believed in another life ; and the contents of tombs upon 
the banks of the Vezere and the Somme, seem to prove that 
a happy prairie-land was looked forward to here, as upon the 
banks of the M ississippi. 

The man of Perigord, like the Algonquin, did not rise 
above the very lowest stage in the social scale ; he remained 
a hunter, at least till towards the close of that age, during 
which he appeared among the mountains of France. It is, 
then, an error to employ the term civilization in speaking of 
this race. Yet he was endowed with an intelligence both 
pliable and capable of improvement. We have seen that he 
made progress and changes by himself, a fact, of which no 
trace is to be observed in his American representative, so 
that, in this respect, he was undoubtedly his superior. And 
lastly, his artistic instincts, and the remarkable productions 
which he has left, gain for him a special place among the 
savage races of all times. 

X. During all the. first part of the reindeer age, the Cro- 



330 The Human Species. 

Magnon race supported itself in the state, of which I have 
just been pointing out the principal features. But from 
the commencement of the second half of the same age, 
during the deposition of the red diluvium and the upper 
loess, we observe an unmistakable decline, which becomes 
more and more striking as we proceed. The working of 
bone and reindeer antlers diminishes and returns to its 
former rudeness ; flint cutting, on the contrary, gains in 
favour, and in some places, as in the grotto discovered at 
Saint Martin d'Excideuil by M. Parrot, acquires a most 
I'emarkable finish. But this very perfection seems to herald 
the approach of a new age, and to betray the influence of a 
strange element. 

The fact is, that during this period an amelioration in the 
general conditions of life was taking place. Europe had at 
length risen above the waves ; a continental climate was 
succeeding to the maritime climate ; the weather was more 
settled ; warm summers followed winters more severe, but 
less rainy ; the glaciers consequently retreated and became 
confined within their present limits ; and consequently again, 
the fauna became divided. Animals fond of cold, and 
organised for a mountain life, such 'as the chamois and 
bouquetin, were content to emigrate in altitude, and followed 
the glaciers in their retreat to our highest mountain summits. 
The reindeer, in no way adapted for climbing, was forced 
to emigrate in latitude and go further north. Its herds 
became more and more rare, and at length disappeared from 
our countries, where, even if domesticated, it could not have 
continued for long. The human population, who had, doubt- 
less, for centuries lived upon this animal, and obtained from 
it their clothing, arms, and implements, must have felt the 
change intensely, losing with the reindeer, what we may call 
their staff of life. 

What happened now 1 According to MM. Cartailhac, 
Forel, and de Mortillet, man disappeared or emigrated with 
the animal which had become necessary to him, and the 
valleys of PeYigord, Maconnais, and the Pyrenees became 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Duration. 331 

■uninhabited. They hold that, after the close of the reindeer 
age, there is an immense space, a great gap, during which 
the fauna was renewed, and after which a new race of men 
suddenly made their appearance, who polished stone instead 
of cutting it, and surrounded themselves with domestic 
animals. 

In spite of the incontestable authority of the savants 
whom I have just named, their opinion has, I believe, gained 
but very few partisans, and has been hotly contested. It is 
indeed possible, and even probable, that a certain number of 
stations were abandoned during the period in question, and 
that the inhabitants moved northwards to seek those condi- 
tions of climate and facilities for the chase to which they had 
been accustomed. But other tribes remained where they 
were, yielding to the new necessities, adopting the arms and 
customs of the immigrating populations, and becoming amal- 
gamated with them. I cannot here enter into the geological, 
zoological and archaeological considerations by which this 
view is justified. I shall confine myself to mentioning some 
facts which belong especially to anthropology. 

MM. Louis Lartet and Chapelain Duparc discovered near 
Sorde, in the department of the Basses-Pyrenees, a shelter 
in the lower bed of which, after methodical excavations, a 
human skull and bones were found, together with a necklace 
of the teeth of the lion and bear. Immediately above, and 
mixed with the latter, was a thick layer of charcoal from 
which the explorers obtained barbed arrows of the Magda- 
lenean type, and numerous instruments and implements of 
the same age. Bones of the horse and ox were mixed with 
these products of human industry. The reindeer was not 
wanting among this cooking debris, but this species was 
more rare than the others. Lastly, above the charcoal, and 
partly confounded with its upper portion, they discovered a 
layer which was, so to speak, composed of human bones. 
The learned explorers here obtained several cut flints similar 
to the preceding, but they also found a narrow, thin blade, 
as well as a triangular dagger, which, from its form and the 



33 2 The Human Species, 

nature of the work, is closely connected with the finest 
productions of the art of polished stone. 

The upper burial place contained the remains of more 
than thirty individuals. These bones have been taken to 
the museum, and M. Hamy has not hesitated in referring 
them to the Cro-Magnon race. I had only to confirm this 
opinion, as there could be no possible gi'ound for doubt. Upon 
the bones of the limbs as well as upon the skulls, all those 
characters were observed which have become classic since the 
great Works of MM. Broca and Pruner Bey. 

Thus, in this curious grotto at Sorde, we find the super- 
position of two archceological types, the cut stone (Palaeo- 
lithic), and the polished stone (Neolithic) ; but there is only 
one human race, that of Cro-Magnon. Is it not evident that 
this race must have known both the latest times of the rein- 
deer age, and the earliest of the present epoch ? 

Whilst accommodating itself to the new conditions of exist- 
ence, and accepting the industries of strangers more advanced 
than itself, the little tribe of Sorde seems to have preserved 
intact the purity of its blood. This could not, however, be 
universally the case, for the invasion must necessarily have 
occasioned crossing. Here, again, facts fully justify all that 
is indicated by the theory. 

In the cavern of 1'Homme-Mort, situated upon a high 
plateau of the Lozere, and so thoroughly investigated by 
MM. Broca and Prunieres, animal bones of the present epoch 
alone have been found; there were neither reindeer, nor even 
horse, ox, or stag. Moreover, the head of a lance or javelin 
had been worked with a fragment of hatchet in polished stone. 
We here, then, find ourselves in the presence of a population 
much posterior to the quaternary period, and very probably 
contemporary with that which raised numerous dolmens in 
the neighbourhood. 

Now, the remains of this population betray in a high 
degree traces of the Cro-Magnon type, modified partly, 
perhaps, by the action of new conditions of life, but also by 
ethnological changes. The stature is sensibly diminished ; 



The Cro-Magnon Race — Duration. 333 

having descended to a mean of 1*62 m. (5 ft. 3*7 in.). The 
breadth of the upper part of the face is less striking, and the 
whole head has become almost harmonic. But the dolicho- 
cephaly remains ; the lines of the skull are almost unaltered, 
the orbits are always elongated, the nasal orifices narrow, the 
great majority of the bones of the limbs especially have 
preserved their very characteristic features. The same 
grooves are observed in the fibula as at Cro-Magnon • the 
tibia is platycnemic ; in the femur may be observed that 
extraordinary prominence of the linea aspera which con- 
stitutes one of the most curious features of the race; finally, 
the ulna in every case possesses the sigmoid cavity, the 
curve so often pointed out as simian. But at the same 
time we observe a feature as yet foreign to the pure race of 
Cro-Magnon. The olecranon depression of the humerus is 
perforated in a number of specimens in as great a proportion 
as 26, or, perhaps, 33 per cent. This feature, which we find 
in other fossil races, is of itself a sufficient indication of cross- 
ing, and confirms the inferences which we might have 
drawn from the diminution in height, modifications of the 
face, etc. 

Similar facts are proved by the two skulls, and the group 
of bones from Gemenos, near Marseille, which were saved 
from destruction by M. Marion. 

Thus, both upon the Lozere and in the neighbourhood of 
Marseille, the Cro-Magnon race appears in the midst of the 
polished stone period, but with a mixture of characters which 
indicates the influence of a fresh element. We come upon it 
in the upper Cevennes and on the shores of the Mediterranean 
just at the time when its tribes were beginning to blend 
with those who had introduced among them the first elements 
of modern civilization. We cannot be surprised that these 
simple hunters should have been more or less absorbed by a 
denser population, who possessed domesticated animals and 
raised dolmens. 

XI. It may, however, be said with equal, and even with 
greater truth, of the Cro-Magnon as of the Canstadt race, 



334 The Human Species. 

that it has not disappeared. It may be traced through inter- 
mediate ages, and met with again in certain populations of 
the present day. 

In the neolithic tombs placed close beside the quaternary 
burial places at Solutrd, the old hunters of the horse are 
represented by their descendants, of whom the more or less 
modified skulls have been discovered. In the sepulchral 
grottoes of the Marne, so intelligently and successfully explored 
by M. J. de Baye, the Cro-Magnon type is found associated 
with those of four other quaternary races, and with one 
neolithic race. In Germany, near the Taunus ; in Belgium, 
in the caverns of Hamoir and at Nivelles ; in the neighbour- 
hood of Paris, in the recent alluvium of Grenelle ; in the 
clays of the harbour of Boulogne, human remains dating from 
the same epoch, and belonging to the same race, have been 
found. M. Piette discovered a Cro-Magnon skeleton in the 
Aisne, whilst excavating a Gaulish cemetery of the iron age. 
At Paris even, the excavations of the Hotel Dieu, those of 
the Boulevard de Port Royal, etc., have brought to light 
skulls of the same race, of probably as late a date as the 
fifth century, and there are some more recent still. Modern 
specimens will most certainly be found. I have myself twice 
observed in women features which could only accord with 
the cranial and facial bones of the race under discussion. In 
one of them, the dysharmony between the face and skull 
was at least quite as striking as in the old man of Cro- 
Magnon : the eye depressed beneath the orbital vault had 
the same heavy appearance ; the nose was straight rather 
than arched, the lips somewhat thick, the maxillary bones 
strongly developed, the complexion very brown, the hair very 
dark and growing low on the forehead. A thick-waisted 
figure, slightly developed breasts, hands and feet relatively 
small, served to form a whole, which, without being attractive, 
was in no way repulsive. 

The labours of M. Hamy have extended and enlarged 
this field of research. He has again met with the type in 
question amongst the Zaraus collection of Basque skulls, 



Survivors of the Quaternary Epoch. 335 

collected by MM. Broca and Velasco ; he has followed it even 
into Africa in the megalithic tombs explored principally 
by General Faidherbe, and to the Kabyles of the Beni- 
Masser and the Djurjura. It is, however, chiefly in the 
Canary Islands, in the collection of the Barranco-Hundo of 
Teneriffe, that he has met with skulls, the ethnical relation 
of which with the old man of Cro-Magnon is beyond discus- 
sion. On the other hand, some points of comparison, un- 
fortunately very few in number, have led him to regard the 
Balecarlians as connected with the same stock. 

XII. However strange these results may appear, they are 
only a repetition in the human race of what has already been 
proved in the case of animals. It is now a long time since 
Lartet showed that at the close of the quaternary age, and as 
the species peculiar to this age were finally disappearing, 
the survivors were divided into three groups. Some remained 
where they were, others migrated to the north, and others 
again to the south. Perhaps the latter were only persistent 
in Africa, from whence they had despatched their representa- 
tives to us, and where we meet with them still, whilst their 
colonies, which were at one time in a flourishing condition in 
France, perished under the influence of the winters of the 
present period. Finally, as an explanation is given of the 
ancient fauna, and the cause which brought about their 
separation, we cannot be surprised to find human popula- 
tions presenting analogous facts. 

During the quaternary period, the race of Cro-Magnon had 
its principal European centre of population in the south-west 
of France. The little basin of the Vezere was, so to speak, 
its capital ; its colonies spread into Italy, the north of France, 
the valley of the Meuse, etc., where they encountered other 
races, to whom- our attention will soon be turned. But they 
themselves were perhaps only a branch of an African popula- 
tion, which had emigrated to France with the hyaena, the 
lion, the hippopotamus, etc. In this case, there is no diffi- 
culty in explaining its existence at the present day in the 
north-west of Africa, and in islands where it would be pro- 



336 The Human Species. 

tected from crossing. Some of its tribes, carried away in the 
pursuit of the reindeer, will have preserved, in the Scandina- 
vian Alps, the tall form, black hair, and brown complexion 
which distinguishes Dalecarlians of the neighbouring popula- 
tions ; others, mixing with all the races by which France has 
been successively invaded, only betray their ancient existence 
by the phenomena of atavism, which lays upon some indi- 
viduals the mark of the old hunters of Perigord. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

RACES OF FURFOOZ. 

I, In giving the name of a locality justly celebrated in 
anthropology to this group of races, and in applying it 
especially to the two first, M. Hamy and I have been 
chiefly actuated by the desire to honour the long and 
conscientious labours, which have led to the discovery of 
quaternary man in Belgium. It is scarcely necessary to 
remind my readers that it is due, after Schmerling, to M. 
Dupont, who during seven years, from 1864 to 1871, has 
excavated more than sixty caverns or rock- shelters, from 
which he has obtained, independently of his human fossils, 
about forty thousand animal bones and eighty thousand 
stones cut by the hand of man. The race of Grenelle was 
discovered by M. Emile Martin, in 1867, in the gravel pits 
opened in the neighbourhood of Paris, and afterwards 
characterised by M. Hamy. The race of La Truchere was 
found by M. Legrand de Mercey in a bank of the Seille, 
near to the locality of which it bears the name. 

II. Considered from the point of view of the general 
form of the skull, these four types arrange themselves in an 
almost regular manner. The cephalic index 79*31 places 
the first Furfooz race among mesaticephali ; the second 
Furfooz race becomes sub-brachycephalic by its index 8139; 
that of Grenelle, whose index rises to 83'53 in the man, and 
83"68 in the woman, approaches very nearly to brachy- 
cephaly properly so called. This is also the case with that 
of La Truchere, the index of which is 84*32. 

Let us at once proceed to consider this latter, which, at 
present represented in quaternary times only by a head, is, 



338 The Human Species, 

on that account alone, far less interesting than its com- 
panions. The skull and face are here remarkable for a 
dysharrnony as striking as that of the Cro-Magnon head ; 
but the contrast is inverse. The skull, in this case, is broad 
and short, while the face is long. The face view of the 
former presents a very marked pentagonal appearance. The 
bones are all strongly developed in the transverse direction, 
with the exception of the inferior half of the coronal whicfy 
slants rapidly inward so as to form a narrow forehead. The | 
whole face is relatively small and narrow. The nose is very 
large and long ; the massive cheek bones are slightly pro- 
minent, and the superior maxillary bones are slightly 
prognathous. 

The two races of Furfooz, like that of Grenelle, have a 
certain family resemblance, which does not exclude the 
existence of distinctive characters. Thus, in the mesati- 
cephalic race of Furfooz the antero-posterior arc Of the skull 
produces above the small but well marked superciliary 
ridges, a very retreating forehead, and is continued with no 
further inflexion than a slight depression at the sutures. 
The face is broad and the index almost the same as that 
of the race of Cro-Magnon. On account of the shortening 
of the skull, the head is, however, harmonic, instead of 
being dysharmonic as in the troglodytes of Perigord. A 
slightly concave, but sufficiently prominent nose, square 
orbits, slightly marked canine fossae, and an almost orthog- 
nathous superior maxillary bone complete this face, the 
bony framework of which has a somewhat finely cut and 
delicate appearance. 

In this sub-brachycephalic race of the same locality, the 
forehead rises in a somewhat perpendicular line to the level 
of the frontal eminences. The arc then becomes suddenly 
flattened as far as the first third of the parietal bones where 
the curve becomes more inflected and is continued with 
almost unbroken regularity to the foramen magnum of the 
occipital. We meet with almost the same index in the 
face ; but the orbits and the face are longer, the canine 



Races of La True here and of Grenelle, 339 

fossae form deep indentations, the superior maxillary bone 
projects forward, the teeth follow the same direction, and 
the prognathism is very striking. 

In the race of Grenelle, the very prominent glabella and 
full superciliary ridges give a slightly oblique direction to 
the base of the forehead. But the arc soon rises and is 
regularly developed without either projection or depression. 
The skull, viewed from the face, appears as well proportioned 
as in profile. The face harmonises with it. The cheek 
s bones are well developed and prominent ; the canine fossae 
Mgh, but not deep; the orbits approach the square form; 
'the bones of the nose are concave and sufficiently pro- 
minent. Finally, the maxillary bone and the teeth are 
equally prognathous, but less so than in the preceding race. 

III. The men of Grenelle, and still more those of Furfooz, 
were of small stature. The former reached a mean of 
1 62 m. (5ft. 3*8 in.), but the latter descended to 1'53 m. 
(5ft. 0*2 in.) This is almost exactly the mean height of 
the Lapps. Yet this reduced stature would neither exclude 
the vigour nor the agility necessary to savage populations. 
The bones of the limbs and trunk are strong, and the . 
eminences and depressions of their surface indicate a very 
marked muscular development. 

With the exception of this general appearance of strength 
superior to that which is generally met with, the skeleton 
of the men of Furfooz and Grenelle strongly resembles that 
of men of the present day. The tibia in particular assumes 
the prismatic triangular form which we are accustomed to 
observe in them. We remark, nevertheless, the appearance 
of a character which we have as yet only noticed in the 
cavern of l'Homme-Mort, where we considered it to be 
a sign of crossing. The olecranon depression is often per- 
forated in the races now under discussion. In Belgium M. 
Dupont found this disposition to exist in the men of the 
Lesse in the proportion of 30 per cent. M. Hamy carries it 
to 28 per cent, in the fossil man of Grenelle, and to 46 6 per 
cent, only in the French of the present day. 



34-0 The Human Species. 

IV. The races of Furfooz, coming after those whose history 
we have j ust sketched, must have come in contact, and some- 
times have formed connections with them. The clearest 
demonstration of this fact is at Solutre, where, side by side 
with Cro-Magnon skulls, two heads were found belonging to 
the race of Grenelle. Intellectual and social development 
must have progressed almost equally among men united into 
a single tribe. 

Our brachycephali have, however, had their special centres 
of population where we can examine them in their home. 
The researches of M. Dupont have been chiefly devoted tp 
Belgium and the valley of the Lesse. To give an idea of 
what the men of Furfooz were, we need do no more than 
reproduce an abridged account of all that the learned explorer 
of these caverns has said upon the subject. 

Y. The men of the Lesse, like those of the Vezere, inhabited 
caverns. One of their complete stations comprised the grotto 
where they lived, and a funeral grotto. M. Dupont found 
them almost in juxta-position at Furfooz, where the Trou 
des Nutons presented all the characters of a human habita- 
tion, and the Trou du Frontal those of a place of sepulture. 
These two localities alone would have furnished many 
materials for the history of these ancient populations. Never- 
theless the Trou de Chaleux excels them in this respect- 
It was long inhabited by man, who left there a considerable 
accumulation of that refuse which is now turned to such 
good account by science. The roof one day fell in ; the 
inhabitants escaped, leaving all that was buried in their 
dwelling. Thus, when this heap of rubbish came to be dis- 
turbed by the pick-axe, all was found just as it had been 
left at the moment of the catastrophe, and it is with good 
reason that the Grotto of Chaleux has been called a little 
quaternary Pompeii. 

The man of Chaleux chiefly employed flint and reindeer 
horn to supply his several wants. The former was used for 
the greater number of his stock of implements ; but he gave 
himself little trouble in varying or perfecting the form. 



Races of Furfooz. 341 

Narrow, elongated blades cut with a single blow upon one 
side, with two or three upon the opposite face, and what 
are called knives, seem to be the model from which all the 
implements are worked. Notched upon one edge they 
became saws ; rounded and recut at one extremity they 
were transformed into scrapers, well adapted for scraping 
and taking the hair off skins ; tapered and chipped to a 
point, they furnished bodkins, piercers, etc. As for rein- 
deer horn, it was divided into pieces from 10 to 15 centi- 
metres (3'9 — 5*9 inches) long, and then shaped so as to 
serve for lances or javelins. They may possibly have some- 
times received a point of flint. But M. Dupont assures us 
that there are no grounds for supposing that the bow and 
arrow were in use among these troglodytes. 

The arms of the tribe of Chaleux, were then much inferior 
to those of the Vezere or of Solutre. It still, however, hunted 
large game, and knew also how to obtain the small. Its 
ancient dwelling-place has furnished the remains of numerous 
horses, several oxen, some reindeer, sixteen foxes, five wild 
boars, three chamois, three aurochs, one brown bear, one 
Saiga antelope, etc. 

The bones also of the hare, squirrel, water-rat and Nor- 
wegian rat, have been found here ; the remains of several 
birds, amongst others those of the ptarmigan ; and remains 
of fresh water fish. The fauna of the Trou des Nutons is 
almost identical, but the proportion of species is sometimes 
inverted. A much smaller number of horses and much 
greater number of wild boars have been discovered there. 
Here again, as in the stations of the Cro-Magnon race, the 
larger species are scarcely represented by more than the 
bones of the head and limbs, all those containing marrow 
having been carefully broken up. 

Like the preceding race, that of Furfooz made use of 
the skins of slain animals for clothing. This is proved by 
the bone needles found at Chaleux. But they are here 
much ruder in form than those of La Madeleine and other 
similar stations. Short and thick, they might be taken for 



342 The Human Species. 

small bodkins were it not for the eye with which they are 
pierced. 

VI. The Belgian troglodytes were, from many points of 
view, far behind those of Perigord and Maconnais. The 
monuments of their industry are much inferior to all that 
we have seen amongst their predecessors, and they show no 
indication of the artistic aptitudes so remarkable in the man 
of the Vezere. They surpass him however, in one essential 
point ; they had invented, or received from elsewhere, the 
art of manufacturing a rude kind of pottery, of which M. 
Dupont has found the remains in all the stations which Joe 
has explored, and obtained in the Trou du Frontal fragments 
in sufficient number to restore the vase of which they had 
once formed part. 

This, and some other facts, which it would take too long 
to discuss here, have led some of the most competent savants, 
amongst others MM. Cartailhac and Cazalis de Fondouce, to 
regard the Trou du Frontal and the other contemporary 
stations as belonging to the neolithic stone period, and not 
to the quaternary epoch. 

But the character of the fauna discovered in the grottoes 
of Chaleux and Furfooz makes it impossible in our opinion 
to accept this opinion, which rests chiefly upon archaeological 
considerations. To refer the age of polished stone to an 
epoch when the chamois, bouquetin, and Saiga antelope lived 
in Belgium with the Norwegian rat and the ptarmigan, would 
be making it very distant. This question may perhaps call 
for further study ; but the juxtaposition of these species in 
the neighbourhood of Dinant is, in our opinion, a proof that 
the quaternary period had not then drawn to a close. 

VII. The troglodytes of Belgium painted the face and 
perhaps the body, like those of Perigord. The ornaments 
in use at Chaleux and Furfooz were almost the same as 
those which we have found in the south of France. We 
never, however, find amongst them any object borrowed from 
marine fauna. This is a curious fact, as the man of the 
Lesse journeyed in search of his jewels, as well as of the 



Races of Furfooz. 343 

rough material for his implements and arms much greater 
distances than that which separated him from the sea. 

In fact, the principal ornaments of the men of the Lesse 
were fossil shells. Some, it is true, were obtained from the 
Devonian rocks in their vicinity ; but the greater part came 
from a considerable distance, chiefly from Champagne and 
from Grismon near Versailles. The flints, which our troglo- 
dytes used in such great numbers, were obtained, not from 
Hainault or the province of Liege, but almost entirely from 
Champagne. There are some even which could only have 
been collected in Touraine, on the banks of the Loire. 
Judging from the localities of these different objects, we 
might conclude that the known world of the troglodytes of 
the Lesse scarcely extended in a northerly direction for 13 
to 25 miles, whilst to the south it stretched to a distance of 
250 to 300 miles. 

There is something very strange in this fact, of which, 
however, M. Dupont seems to have given what is, at least, a 
very plausible explanation. He holds that two populations, 
perhaps two races, were placed in juxtaposition in the 
countries in question during the quaternary period. There 
must have existed between them one of those many instances 
of, we may say, instinctive hatred similar to that which pre- 
vails between the Red-Skins and the Esquimaux. Encircled 
on the north and the east by their enemies, who occupied 
Hainault, the aborigines of the Lesse could only extend 
towards the south, and, through the Ardennes, communicate 
with the basins of the Seine and the Loire. 

But did they themselves undertake the long and difficult 
journeys, by which alone they could procure the shells which 
they used for ornaments, and the immense quantity of flint 
which they worked in their caverns 1 We do not hesitate to 
assert with M. Dupont that nothing is less probable. Every- 
thing, on the contraiy, proves that they obtained their supplies 
by means of a veritable commerce, organised in a regular 
manner and upon a large scale ; whether by the existence of 
populations devoted to this form of industry, of which there 



344 The Human Species. 

are several examples known to us in the present day ; or by 
the shells and flints passing from hand to hand through suc- 
cessive exchanges, and reaching at length the banks of the 
Lesse. We cannot explain in any other way the abundance 
of foreign flints at Chaleux, Furfooz, etc., the prodigality with 
which they were used, and the evident carelessness displayed 
in the preservation of tools which had been manufactured 
from them. 

VIII. In direct opposition to the men of Cro-Magnon, 
those of Furfooz appear to have been eminently pacific. M:| 
Dupont has not discovered either in their grottoes or burial- 
places any warlike arms, and he applies to them Ross's re- 
marks upon the Esquimaux of Baffin's Bay, w T ho did not 
understand what was meant by war. 

In the sepulchral grotto of Le Frontal, where the tribe of 
Les Nutons buried their dead, a number of objects have been 
found, as at Cro-Magnon, proving the existence of a belief in 
another life. They consisted of a number of perforated shells, 
ornaments in spar, flat pieces of sandstone traced with sketches, 
the vase which we have mentioned above, and some selected 
flint implements. All these objects are, moreover, of the 
same nature as those in the Trou des Nutons. It is clear 
that they had been laid in the sepulchral vault under the 
impression that they would serve to supply the wants of the 
deceased in the new existence which was opening before 
them. 

Another fact, upon which M. Dupont has with justice in- 
sisted, adds to the probability arising from various considera- 
tions, of our being right in attributing to these quaternary 
men a kind of religion more or less analogous to Fetishism. 
In the Trou de Chaleux, a mammoth's ulna w T as placed by 
the side of a hearth upon a slab of sandstone. Now the 
mammoth no longer existed in Belgium at the close of the 
age of the reindeer, and this bone must have been found in 
the alluvium of the preceding age. It had doubtless been 
the cause of an error which may be observed even at the 
present day, and had been looked upon as having belonged 



Races of Furfooz. 345 

to a giant. The place of honour which was allotted to it in 
the dwelling of the troglodytes seems to intimate that it had 
become an object of veneration. 

IX. Yery few remains of the two races of Furfooz and 
that of Grenelle, have been discovered in other quaternary 
deposits than those which have just been mentioned. The 
former are, however, represented in the basins of the Somme 
and the Aude ; the latter has been met with at two or three 
points in the basin of the Seine. We have seen that it 
existed at Solutre, and the skull of Nagy-Sap in Hungary 
jfrust probably be referred to it. These facts are sufficient 
to show that since the glacial epoch the races in question 
have occupied an extensive area. 

In the neolithic age, we find the mesaticephali of Furfooz 
extending from the Yar and Herault to Gibraltar ; the sub- 
brachycephali are represented from Yerdun to Boulogne-sur- 
mer, and to Camp-Long from Saint-Cesaire ; they intermingled 
with the ancient inhabitants of Cabeco d'Arruda in Portugal. 

The brachycephalic race of Grenelle, has, however, left the 
most distinct traces. It has been discovered in France in 
several dolmens, and in the Round Barrows in England. In 
Denmark it constitutes the brachycephalic type of Eschricht, 
and in Sweden forms a dozen of the total number of the 
skulls found in dolmens by Retzius and his successors. 

The intervention of these different races in the formation 
of existing races is equally evident. The exact demonstra- 
tion of the fact is, however, often difficult. The crossing 
which took place between groups placed in such close contact 
with each other, more or less confused the types. Other 
brachycephalic types, amongst others the Celtic race, such as 
it has been described by M. Broca, came to add to the con- 
fusion. Nevertheless, when visiting the valley of the Lesse, 
several members of the Congress of prehistoric Anthropology 
recognised skulls and faces as bearing in the clearest manner, 
the distinctive marks of the local fossil races, and these traces 
are still more frequent in the rural population which supplies 
the markets of Antwerp. 



n 



46 The Human Species. 



It is the race of Grenelle, again, which reappears most 
persistently in living populations. The numerous Parisian 
skulls in the Paris Museum present several examples of this 
fact. The type is, however, very rarely found pure, a fact, 
which is probably the result of two causes. On the one 
hand, the new conditions of existence imposed upon the 
quaternary races by change of climate, must have caused an 
alteration in some of their characteristics. On the other 
hand, fresh elements, differing but slightly from the fossil 
element, have been blended with it. If the skulls of Grenelle 
are compared, as they have been by M. Hamy, with Lapp 
skulls, we find that from the extent of the horizontal arc, 
from the length of the antero-posterior and transverse 
diameters, and from the cephalic indices, the former must 
be placed almost exactly half-way between the two great 
known orders of Lapp skulls. We observe indeed, certain 
differences between them. For example, the cranial vault 
is more flattened in the Lapp than in the man of Grenelle ; 
but, on the whole, the analogies are far greater in number 
than the differences. 

The elder Retzius, Sven Nilsson, Eschricht, and others, had 
already recognised, by means of their investigations of the 
ancient burials of their country, the great extension of an 
ancient brachycephalic race, which they identified with the true 
Lapps. M. Schaaf hausen, at the last Stockholm Congress, 
brought forward another example in support of this opinion. 

After considering these facts, M. Hamy and I have been 
led to admit a Lapp-like type, to which, with the race of 
Grenelle, a great number of populations scattered through 
time, and extending over nearly the whole of Europe, may 
be referred. In the Dauphine Alps particularly, this type is 
represented in an almost pure state. A curious collection of 
skulls in the possession of M. Hoel leaves no room for doubt 
on this point. We have then confirmed, while giving it 
greater precision and tracing it to an earlier period, one of 
those general views, for which anthropology owes so much to 
the Scandinavian savants. 



Lapp-like Type. 347 

X. Thus, the races of Furfooz and that of Grenelle, the 
last to appear in the quaternary epoch, came in contact 
during the glacial ages with the dolichocephalic races which 
had preceded them. In certain respects they have become 
amalgamated with them ; in others, they have preserved 
their autonomy ; and they have shared the same fate. They 
also experienced that change of soil and climate, which we 
have seen causing such trouble to the rising societies of the 
Cro-Magnon race ; they also witnessed a gradual change in 
(,be conditions of existence ; and the results of these changes 
jkave affected them in the manner which we have already 
pointed out. 

A certain number of tribes spread northwards, following 
the reindeer and other animal species which they had been 
accustomed to regard as necessary to their existence ; they 
emigrated in latitude. Others from the same motive emi- 
grated in altitude, accompanying the chamois and bouquetin 
into the mountain chains, which had been liberated by the 
melting of glaciers. Others, again, remained stationary. 
The two first groups were free for a much longer time from 
the influence of ethnical mixture. The tribes composing the 
third soon found themselves in the presence of brachycephalic 
and dolichocephalic immigrants of the polished stone period, 
and were easily subjugated and absorbed by them. 

XI. On their arrival in Europe, the men of the polished 
stone period did not meet only with those races which we 
have been discussing. They came in contact with all the 
quaternary races. This is proved by many of the facts 
already mentioned ; and is proved merely by the magnifi- 
cent collection of skulls and skeletons collected by M. de 
Baye from the sepulchral grottoes of the Marne. With 
the exception of the Canstadt type, all those which we 
have just described seem to have met together in this 
remarkable locality. Even that of La Truchere is repre- 
sented by a head almost as strongly characterised as that of 
the Seille. The foundation of this neolithic population still 
belonged, however, to a newly arrived type. It is scarcely 



348 The Htcman Species. 

necessary to add that, whether old or recent, all these races 
have intermingled, and that the crossing is betrayed some- 
times by the fusion, and sometimes by the juxta-position, of 
characteristics. 

Either by infiltration or conquest, new races mingled with 
the preceding, before even the arrival of the Aryans. The 
latter spread to the western extremities of the continent, 
leaving extensive regions on the north and the south, where 
their predecessors continued to exist. Then followed historic 
invasions. It is from the mixture of all these elements 
brought together by war, and fused by the experiences of 
peace, that our European societies have been formed. 

XII. Man has been the sole essential agent in the forma- 
tion of fresh ethnical groupings. From the earliest times of 
the polished stone period, land and climate have remained 
unaltered in our western world. European man has then 
been at liberty to obey the laws of his evolution, to found, 
modify, or destroy his associations and his societies, to 
traverse the ages of bronze and iron as well as historic times, 
without having to battle with those invincible forces, which 
perhaps arrested the development of the hunters of Cro- 
Magnon. 

In what degree does the anthropological past of the rest 
of the world resemble that of Europe ? Science will some 
day, undoubtedly, answer this question, but we could now 
only form conjectures. It is wiser to abstain, content with 
having deciphered in less than half a century, almost a whole 
chapter of that prehistoric and paheontological history of 
man, the existence of which was not even suspected by our 
fathers. 



BOOK IX. 

PRESENT HUMAN RACES.— PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. 



£3 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. — EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 

I. I CONSIDERED that I ought to give a somewhat detailed 
account of our knowledge of fossil human races. The interest 
and novelty of the subject induced me to do so, and its 
moderate extent rendered it possible. But I cannot treat 
the history of present races in the same manner. If I washed 
to study them singly, I could scarcely devote more than a 
few lines to each. Even if I grouped them into families, I 
should only be able to give an incomplete and vague account 
of them, unless I went much beyond the limits of this work. 

It seemed to me then preferable to adopt the practice of 
botanists and zoologists, who always begin with a general 
account of the nature and significance of the characters of 
the group which they wish to discuss. These notions, when 
affecting the whole group, are moreover always necessary. 
They alone allow us to grasp and comprehend certain general 
results. They become still more indispensable, when races 
derived from one and the same species are under discussion, 
because they bring forward and render evident the unity of 
specific origin of these races, just as much as direct proofs. 

II. If we were familiar with primitive man, we should 
regard as characterising races, everything which separates 
them from this type. From want of this natural term of 



350 The Human Species. 

comparison, we have taken the European White as normal, 
and compared the remaining human groups with him. This 
leads to a tendency, which must be pointed out at once. 

Influenced by certain habits of thought, and by a self-love 
of race which is easily explained, many anthropologists have 
thought that they could interpret the physical differences 
which distinguish men from one another, and consider simple 
characteristic features as marks of inferiority or superiority. 
Because the European has a short heel, and some Negroes 
have a long one, they have wished to consider the latter as ft 
mark of degradation. The remarks which were made ur^L 
this subject, with so much justice, by Desmoulins with refer- 
ence to the Bosjesmans were forgotten. Because the greater 
number of civilizations have risen among dolichocephalic 
nations, a head elongated from before backwards has been 
regarded as a superior form. It was forgotten that the 
Negroes and the Esquimaux are generally dolichocephali of 
the most pronounced type, and that European brachycephali 
are in every case the equals of their dolichocephalic brethren. 

All analogous interpretations are absolutely arbitrary. In 
fact, superiority between human groups depends essentially 
upon intellectual and social development ; it passes from one 
to another. The Chinese and Egyptians were already civi- 
lized, when all Europeans were true savages. If the latter 
had judged our ancestors as we too frequently judge foreign 
races, they would have found many signs of inferiority in 
them, commencing with the white skin of which we are so 
proud, and which they would have been able to regard as 
betraying an irremediable degeneration. 

Is the fundamental superiority of one race really betrayed 
outwardly by some material sign ? We are still in ignorance 
upon this point. But when we examine it more closely, we 
are led to think that it is not so. In expressing myself thus, 
I know that I am separating myself from the opinions which 
are generally admitted, and am at variance with men whose 
works I value most highly. But I hope to give decisive 
proofs in my favour further on. 



Ge7ieral Characters. 351 

Differences of every kind nevertheless exist between one 
human group and another. These must be taken for what 
they are, for characters of race, for ethnical characters. It is 
the duty of the anthropologist especially to recognise these 
differences, to make use of them for defining the groups, then 
to connect or separate, according to their affinities, the races 
thus characterised. In other terms, his work is the same as 
that of the botanist or geologist describing and classifying 
plants and animals. 

. Men of an impatient or venturous disposition will perhaps 
p^ roach me with making anthropology too descriptive. I 
shall only make a partial defence against the accusation. 
Provided that the description embraces the entire being, it 
enables us to become acquainted with it. If we take our stand 
on this point of view, we remain on the ground of positive 
knowledge, and run less risk of losing ourselves in hypotheses. 

I still consider it the right and almost the duty of the 
anthropologist, to investigate the causes which may have 
given rise to the appearance of the features which characterise 
races. The study of the actions of the conditions of life 
sometimes gives valuable indications on this subject. The 
evolution of the human being from his appearance in the 
embryonic state to the adult state, especially furnishes facts 
of great interest. A simple arrest, a slight excess in the 
evolutive phenomena, are, it appears to me, the causes of the 
principal differences which separate races, and particularly 
the two extremes, the Negro and the White. 

I know full well that a wish has been felt to go further 
back. Under the more or less perceptible influence of trans- 
mutationist doctrines, terms of comparison in the estimation 
of these differences have too often been sought for amonsr 
animals, and especially among apes. Eminent men, without 
even adopting these doctrines, frequently use the expres- 
sions, simian character, animal character. Why forget the 
embryo or the human foetus ? Why not remember even the 
infant ? Question their history. It furnishes all the elements 
of a human evolution theory, certainly much more precise 
16 



35 2 The Human Species. 

and true than the simian theory. This is again a result 
which will be made clear, I hope, by the facts which I shall 
have to mention. 

But whether or not I may be able to explain the appear- 
ance of the features which distinguish races from each other, 
and whatever origin may be attributed to them, I shall only 
take the word character in the sense which is given to it in 
botany and zoology. 

III. An animal species is not characterised solely by the 
peculiarities manifested by its physical organism. No history 
of bees or ants omits to speak of their instincts, or to s&>w r 
how these differ in different species. With much stronger 
reason ought we to point out in the history of human races 
the characteristic points in their intellectual, moral, and 
religious manifestations. Of course, when approaching this 
order of facts, the anthropologist ought none the less to 
remain exclusively a naturalist, 

This very simple consideration is sufficient to determine 
the relative value which ought to be attributed in anthropol- 
ogy to characters of different orders. Here, as in botany 
and in zoology, the first place ought to be given to the most 
persistent characters. Now, a man, tribe, or an entire popu- 
lation can in a certain number of years change its social 
state, its language, religion, etc. They do not on that account 
modify their external or anatomical physical characters. It 
is therefore to the latter that the anthropologist will attach, 
most importance, contrary to what the linguist, the philo- 
sopher, or the theologian would certainly do. 

Nevertheless we shall see that, in some very rare cases, 
the linguistic characters preponderate over the physical 
characters, in the sense that they furnish more striking 
indications on the subject of certain ethnical affinities. 
Considered from a physical point of view, mst 
characters which may be divided into four distinct categ 
namely : external characters, anatomical charact 
logical characters, and pathological characters. 

IV. External characters. — Height. All bre I 



External Characters — Height. 353 

height as characteristic of race among animals. It is also 
one of the traits which are most striking in man. This 
character sometimes shows that it is very evidently de- 
pendent upon the conditions of existence. Sheltering and 
feeding somewhat carefully the mares of La Camargue, has 
been sufficient to raise the height of this excellent breed of 
horses. With man, M. Durand (de Gros), confirming an 
observation already due to Ed. Lartet, has shown that, in 
the Aveyron, the populations of the limestone cantons are 
sensibly taller than those of the granite or schistose cantons. 
Hte agreed with the statement of Dr. Albespy, that liming 
lands in the non-calcareous portions of this district has 
raised the height by two, three Or even four centimetres 
(78, 1*17, 1*57 inch) on the lands where the practice has 
existed for the longest time. 

But on the other hand, it is indisputable, that races of very 
different height live side by side, without its being possible 
hitherto to point out the cause of this diversity. The 
dwarfed Negroes, the Akkas and Obongos, seem to be placed 
under conditions precisely similar to those under which much 
taller neighbouring tribes live. 

I have given above 163 statures of human races. I have 
insisted with sufficient strength upon the consequences which 
follow from them ; from the point of view of the gradation 
and intercrossing of characters. But we can extract from these 
numbers some other results which are not less interesting. 

The general mean given by these numbers will be l Ui- 635 
(oft 4 37 inch). I regard it as a little too great, the 
measures being wrong rather for the short races, than for the 
tall. Nevertheless it cannot be very far from the truth, and 
may be accepted provisionally. 

It is seen from the table that the Roumanians and the 
Magyars represent, from this point of view, exactly the mean 
stature. 

The oscillations of the mean statures above and below 
this general mean, extend in the case of the Patagonians 
to + n l 15 (453 inch), and in the case of the Bosjesmans 



354 The Hitman Species. 

to — m *265 (10*43 inch). The individual oscillations are + 
m *295 (11*71 inch) for the inhabitants of Tongatabou, and 
— m *495 (1ft 7-49 inch) or — 0™*635 (2ft 1 inch) for the 
Bosjesmans. 

We see from the table that the oscillations below the general 
mean, are less numerous than those above it. This result 
may be connected with the fact which I have just pointed out. 
Nevertheless it appears to me probable that the number of 
races above the mean stature, is greater than those below 
it. The difference in number is compensated for by the 
more than double extent of the oscillations below the mean. 

Between the highest mean observed among the Southern 
Patagonians, and the lowest mean among the Bosjesmans, we 
find a difference of m *554 (lft 9*8 inch). The difference 
between individuals will be ni *930 (3ft 06 inch). But I 
think that it ought to be reduced to O m "790 (2ft 71 inch), 
adopting as a mean the height l m, 14 (3ft 8*88 inch) given 
by Barrow as the height of a Bosjesman woman who had 
had several children. We are thus certain that we are not 
taking a case of teratological dwarfishness as a possible 
normal state. 

Travellers have not often measured separately the height 
of men and women. Uniting the facts of this nature which 
I have been able to collect, we find m 141 (5*57 inch) as the 
mean difference between the heights of the sexes, and 0*973 
as the mean ratio, the woman being everywhere shorter than 
the man. Among the Lapps, according to Capel Brooke and 
Campbell, the mean difference is as high as m *278 (10*94 
inches) ; in Austria, it is as low as tu *037 (1*45 inch) according 
to Liharzik. 

Y. Proportion of the body and of the limbs. In all the 
races of our domestic animals, the relative development of 
the different parts of the body, the proportions, have a 
characteristic value, which is equal and frequently superior 
to that of height. No one would think of separating the 
greyhound from the harrier. It ought to be exactly the 
same with man. With the animal, races are formed by a 






Exte7'iial Characters — Proportions. 355 

selection more or less open, and undertaken for a fixed 
purpose. The proportions of the different parts of the body 
thus acquire a fixity, which cannot be found in human races 
on account of the absence of selection. 

This variability is found even in the simplest relations, 
and in those which might be considered fundamental. Such 
is the relation of the height of the head to the total height. 
Gerdy, who has taken up this question in a special manner, 
has found that the height of Frenchmen is rarely beyond 
7£ heads, most frequently a little more than 8 heads, and 
sometimes 9. The artistic ideal is no more fixed than the 
reality, in spite of the mathematical rules laid down, from 
Vitruvius to Liharzik and Silberman. The table drawn up 
by Audran shows the variation from 7tt heads (the Egyptian 
Termes) to 7|-f (the Farnese Hercules). The difference 
between these two extremes is exactly half a head. Painters 
have taken still more liberty. Raphael has only given a 
height of 6 heads to some of his figures, and Michael Angelo 
has given them 8 or more. 

The Pythian Apollo (7ff heads), the Laocoon (7f |), are 
nevertheless chefs-cVceuvre, and we rightly bestow an equal 
amount of admiration upon the two Italian masters. The 
reason is just the same as with the rest of organised beings : 
man's organism is not subject to absolute laws, nor to a rigor- 
ously fixed development. 

Doubtless there have been noticed among some human 
races differences of proportion generally sufficiently marked 
to serve as characters. But it just as often happens that 
with some individuals the order of these differences is in- 
verted. It is another example of intercrossing. 

Thus the African Negro has generally the upper limb, 
from the shoulder to the wrist, relatively longer than the 
European White, and we shall return to this point further 
on. Nevertheless, from the measures of Quetelet, it follows 
that a Negro, well known in the studios, where he acted as a 
model, had much shorter arms than the soldiers, and than a 
Belgian model, who were taken as terms of comparison. 



356 The Human Species. 

Moreover, the numbers found by Quetelet place the indi- 
viduals, upon whom his observations were made, in the follow- 
ing order : — 1st, mean of ten Belgian soldiers ; 2nd, an 
Ojibbeway chief; 3rd, a Belgian model, and a Zulu Kaffir; 
4th, an Amaponda Kaffir ; 5th, the Negro model ; 6th, 
three young Ojibbeways ; 7th, Cantfield, the Hercules of 
the United States. Here intercrossing again appears in a 
well marked manner, and it is in the White race that the 
Brussels savant has found the two extremes. 

In the general characteristic of negro races, we often find 
quoted the slight development and the relatively high posi- 
tion of the calf of the leg. I have no definite information 
upon the latter of these characters, As for the former, it 
has been represented to be too general. Two Blacks, the 
Amaponda Kaffir, and the Negro model in the tables of 
Quetelet, present the maximum m *410 (16*14 inches), and 
the minimum m *328 (1292 inches) of development of this 
part. They are separated from each other by the Belgians, 
the Ojibbeways, and Cantfield. 

Finally, the means taken for the different parts of the 
body will doubtless give results useful for the distinction 
of races. But still, account will have to be taken of many 
of the conditions. All hunting peoples, including the Aus- 
tralians, according to travellers who have been among them, 
could furnish models for the sculptor, and are generally re- 
markable for the symmetry and beauty of their proportions. 
In this respect civilized populations, especially those of our 
great towns, present a deplorable inferiority. Is our funda- 
mental type degraded in this respect ? Certainly not. But 
civilization itself, by the facilities of existence which it pro- 
cures, by the vices which it induces, by the weakly indi- 
viduals which it preserves, introduces into the race the 
elements of degradation. Here again appears, in all its 
fulness, the influence of the conditions of life. 

YI. Colouring. With all anthropologists I recognise the 
high value of the colour of the skin as a character. Never- 
theless, its importance must not be exaggerated. We now 



External Characters — Colouring. 357 

know that it does not result from the existence or disappear- 
ance of special layers. Black or white, the skin always com- 
prises a white dermis, penetrated by many capillaries, and an 
epidermis, more or less transparent and colourless. Between 
the two is placed the mucous layer, of which the pigment 
alone in reality varies in quantity and colour according to the 
race. 

All the colours presented by the human skin have two 
common elements, the white of the dermis and the red of 
the blood. Moreover, each has its own proper element, re- 
sulting from the colourings of the pigment. The rays re- 
flected from these different tissues combine into a result- 
ant which produces the different tints and traverses the 
epidermis. This latter plays the part of roughened glass. 
The more delicate and the finer it is, the more perceptible 
is the colour of the subjacent parts. 

This arrangement explains why, among certain coloured 
races, for example, among the Sandwich Islanders, the 
upper classes, who do not live an exposed life, often ex- 
hibit the colour in a most pronounced form. Among them 
sun-burning masks the colour of the pigment, as it masks 
with us the colour of the dermis and its vessels. 

From the preceding, we can also understand why the 
White alone can be said to turn pale or to blush. The 
reason is, that in him the pigment allows the slightest 
differences in the afflux of blood to the dermis to be per- 
ceived. With the Negro as with us, the blood has its 
share in the colouring, the tint of which it deepens or 
modifies. When the blood is wanting, the Negro turns 
grey from the blending of the white of the dermis with 
the black of the pigment. 

It is well known that from the point of view of the colour- 
ing, human races can be divided into four principal groups : 
white, yellow, black, and red races. But we must guard 
against attaching an absolute sense to these expressions. 
Every grouping of races founded solely on colour would 
break close relations, and would lead to comparisons which 



358 The Human Species. 

would evidently be at variance with the sum of the remain- 
ing characters. Nevertheless, this systematic point of view 
brings to light some interesting general facts. 

The races of a white colour present sufficient homogeneity. 
From the sum of their characters, they belong almost ex- 
clusively to the type which borrows its name from this kind 
of colouring. It is, moreover, useless to insist upon the 
differences of tint which the latter exhibit, from the Eng- 
lish or German woman of the upper classes to the Portu- 
guese, and especially to the Arab. Nevertheless, in the 
northern regions and in Central Asia, some populations, 
the Tchukchees for example, appear to unite with a white 
colour certain characters which connect them with the 
yellows. 

In the purest white, the epidermis easily loses its trans- 
parency as soon as the colour deepens. The sub-cutaneous 
veins can then only be recognised by their swelling. It is 
only with individuals whose skin is very fine and trans- 
parent, that the course of the veins is marked by the well- 
known bluish colour. Whenever this trait is exhibited by 
any population whatever, it may with certainty be connected 
with the white type. For this reason I have not hesitated to 
place among the Allophylians some of the most savage tribes 
of the north, western shores of North America, and the Tchuk- 
chees, of whom I have just spoken. 

The populations with a black skin are far from being as 
homogeneous as the preceding. All black men are not 
Negroes ; there are some, who, from the sum of their more 
important characters, are closely connected with the white 
stock. Such, for example, are the Bicharis and other 
negroid populations, on the borders of the Red Sea, whose 
skin is much blacker than that of some negroes, but whose 
hair and characters are perfectly Semitic. 

Among Negroes properly so called, the tints vary, perhaps, 
much more than with the White. Without going further 
than Cairo, individuals may be seen, who, without any 
traces of the mixture of races, are of a brown colour with 



External Characters — Colouring. 359 

a considerable mixture of black. The Yolofs are of a bluish 
black, resembling the wing of a raven, and Livingstone 
speaks of some tribes on the Zambesi who are the colour 
of cafe au lait. But, perhaps, mixture of races has some 
action in this extreme modification of the colour. 

Populations with a yellow skin present facts analogous 
with the preceding, but not so numerous nor so striking. 
Perhaps this difference is only due to the difficulty of 
recognising the shades of the fundamental colour. Never- 
theless, a more or less pronounced yellow colour equally 
characterises the great Mongolian stock, -and the Houzou- 
ana or Bosjesman race, which it is impossible to separate 
from the Negroes. On the other hand, this same tint is 
so well marked among the mulattoes that they are often 
designated by the name of yellows, in distinction to the 
Blacks and the Whites. 

Of the four groups into which the colour of human races 
may be divided, the least characteristic is the red. It has 
been attempted to make it the attribute of the Americans. 
This is a mistake. On the one hand, in America the 
Peruvian, Autisian, Araucanian, and other races are more or 
less deep brown, the Brazilio-Guaranians of a yellowish 
colour slightly tinted with red, etc. On the other hand, in 
Formosa a tribe has been found as red as the Algonquins, 
and more or less copper tints are met with among Oorean, 
African populations, etc. 

Moreover, the red tint appears as the sole effect of the 
crossing between races, neither of which possess it. Fitzroy 
informs us that in New Zealand it frequently characterises 
the half-breeds of English and Maories. This fact also ex- 
plains why it should be met with among many of the 
populations mentioned above. With man it is one of 
those facts which show how intercrossing can give rise to 
the appearance of new characters. - 

Finally Ave see that the colour of the skin, although 
furnishing excellent secondary characters, cannot be taken 
as a starting point in the classification of human races 



360 The Human Species. 

For man, as well as for plants, we ought to recall the 
aphorism of Linnaeus : "nimium ne crede colori." 

The same may be said still more emphatically of the colour 
of the eyes. Doubtless, the black colour is generally found 
among coloured races, and sky-blue scarcely exists except 
among fair populations. The former tint appears even to be 
constant among the yellows and certain allophylian Whites. 
But, even among the Negroes, we often meet with brown 
eyes, and sometimes with grey eyes. 

Just as with the colour of the skin, the colour of the eyes- 
is a resultant due to the combination of the tints reflected bf 
the different layers of the iris, intensified by the colour of 
the blood and seen through the transparent cornea. Hence 
arises the difficulty experienced by painters in rendering the 
general effect. 

VII. The skin and its principal annexes. The skin, 
which covers the entire body, is a real covering composed 
of organs which are anatomically and physiologically dis- 
tinct. The principal one is the cutaneous organ or shin 
properly so called, to which are annexed the organs 
productive of villosities, the sudoriparous glands, the 
cutaneous glands, and some others which do not concern 
us. 

In extreme cases, the surface of the skin is sometimes 
dry and rough, sometimes supple and like satin. The first 
variety is generally met with among Arctic races, the 
second among inhabitants of hot countries, as the Negroes 
and Polynesians. 

The two facts are easily explained by the sole action of 
the temperature. Cold contracts the tissues, drives the 
blood towards the interior, or checks its circulation to- 
wards the surface of the body. It must consequently 
diminish the functional activity of the skin properly so 
called, and partially diminish perspiration. Heat, on the 
contrary, causes a flow of blood to the surface of the 
body, and renders the functions of the skin, and especially 
the perspiration, more active. The latter, by the produc- 



External Characters — Skin, Perspiration. 361 

tion of a constant evaporation on the surface of the body, 
maintains the suppleness of the epidermic layer, and the 
general freshness which causes Negresses to be sought after 
in harems. 

From this action of heat, and the increased activity of the 
cutaneous organs which is its consequence, other results 
follow which explain some of the facts noticed by travellers 
and anthropologists. 

Primer Bey has insisted strongly upon the thickness of the 
cutaneous layers, and especially upon that of the dermis in 
the Negro. Is not this thickness the natural consequence of 
the flow of nutritive principles brought by the blood, which is 
incessantly passing to the surface of the body to keep up the 
perspiration ? 

It has long ago been remarked that the Negroes and 
other races inhabiting hot countries perspire much less 
than the inhabitants of temperate climates. This is ac- 
counted for by the preceding facts. The blood, which is 
constantly brought to the surface and into the cutaneous 
organs, does not flow so copiously in the sudoriparous 
glands, which are deeply buried beneath the adipose tissue. 
Between transpiration and perspiration, in consequence 
of the position of the organs, a real equilibrium should 
exist. 

Probably, one of the difficulties of acclimatisation arises 
from the fact that the proportional activity of these two 
functions has to be changed when we pass from a temper- 
ate to a tropical climate, or vice versa. The researches 
of Krause show that the body of a European contains 
more than 2,281,000 sudoriparous glands. The total 
volume of all these small organs would amount to about 
40 cubic inches. A sudden change in functions could not 
therefore be unimportant. Moreover, the sebaceous glands, 
which are smaller but more numerous than the sudoriparous, 
participate in this change, which can only result in a serious 
shock to the organism. 

The villositics are either very rare or absolutely wanting 



362 The Human Species. 

on the surface of the body of a Negro, except ^ome 1 parts 
which in man are always covered with hair. On the other 
hand, the glandular cutaneous covering is highly developed 
in his case. 

Both these facts may also be referred to the same cause, 
and are explained by the balancing of connected organs. 
The blood, when brought to the surface of the body, aban- 
dons the bulbs of the hair which are too deeply planted; but, 
for the same reason it flows into the sebaceous glands, which 
are situated near the surface. It easily follows that the 
former suffer atrophy, and the latter experience an except 
tional development. 
. This development accounts for the exaggerated odour 
which is peculiar to the Negro. It is known that a slave- 
ship may be recognised by this smell. But African popula- 
tions are not the only ones which are characterised in this 
manner. Humboldt informs us that the Peruvians distinguish 
the odour of a native, a white, and of a negro, calling them 
posco, pezuna, and gra'io. Amongst ourselves, every individ- 
ual has his own peculiar odour, which is easily detected by 
the delicate sense of smell of the dog. 

VIII. Villosities, beard, hair. Villosities in man repre- 
sent the hair of the mammalia; but whilst the latter are 
always covered, with the exception of some special races, 
such as chiens turcs, calongo cattle, etc., man is generally 
only covered to any notable extent upon certain places. In 
the African Negro, and most of the yellow races, it only 
exists upon the normal parts of the body. Nevertheless the 
practice of epilation, which is common to a great number of 
coloured populations, has caused the frequency and intensity 
of this character to be exaggerated. Eckewelder represents 
Red -Skin warriors, in their leisure moments, as occupied in 
tearing out the smallest hairs with pincers especially made 
for the purpose. 

White races are generally more or less hairy, and this 
trait has long been known to be developed to a very excep- 
tional degree among the Ainos. The photographs of Colonel 



External Characters — Beard, Hair. 363 

Marshall show that the Todas are their equal in this respect. 
In certain individuals among the latter the villosities form a 
real fur, especially on the lower limbs. 

Of all the villosities of the human body, those which cover 
the face and cranium have justly attracted most attention. 
All races have hair; but a considerable number in Asia, 
America, and Africa, have been noticed to be entirely without 
beards. Pallas, Humboldt, Brasseur de Bourbourg and 
Pruner Bey, have contradicted these assertions, and shown 
that the absence of beards is entirely due to careful epila- 
tion. All human races are more or less provided with a 
beard. Nevertheless great differences are known, even 
among races belonging to the same fundamental type. 
Certain Melanesian Negroes present a striking contrast in 
this respect to their African brothers. 

The hair of the head is much more constant in respect to 
quantity than that of the beard. Nevertheless it appears to 
be sensibly thicker among some arctic races, who have 
moreover a more abundant down than races in temperate 
climates. In this respect there is perfect agreement with 
the known facts among animals. 

With certain Negro races, the Bosjesmans of South Africa, 
the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, the Papuans of 
Melanesia, and some African tribes, the hair forms upon the 
head small islands, separated by spaces which are perfectly 
smooth. Hence results the heads of hair en grains de 
poivre noticed by different travellers. Amongst most African 
Negroes, and amongst the Yellows and the Whites, the 
distribution of the hair, on the contrary, is uniform. 

The variation of the colour of the hair is well known. 
Some general facts may nevertheless be collected from the 
midst of all these special cases. I have said already that we 
find isolated cases in all races of individuals with hair of a 
more or less reddish colour. Fair hair has for a long time 
been regarded as the appanage of a small number of Aryan 
groups. Nevertheless, according to Pruner Bey, we also 
meet with it sometimes among the Asiatic Semites, and we 



364 The Human Species. 

know for certain that they are very frequent among the 
Kabyles. Facts such as Pierre Martyr, P. Kes, James, etc., 
have noticed among the Parians, the Lee-Panis, the Kiavas, 
etc., will no doubt one day be explained by migrations and 
intercrossings. It seems to me, for instance, almost evident 
that the Scandinavians must have introduced their fair hair 
among several tribes of the American shore, and that the 
facts noticed by Pierre Martyr are one of the proofs of their 
extension beyond the Gulf of Mexico. 

There is also something characteristic in the form of the 
hair taken as a whole. Everyone knows the falsely called 
woolly head of the Negro, wdrich is covered with very short 
and crisp hair. The very long and harsh hair of yellow, 
American, and other populations, contrasts in a striking 
manner with the preceding. That of the white races, which 
is frequently curly, almost takes the mean between these 
two extremes. 

This general aspect ordinarily corresponds with the dif- 
ferences of structure and general form of the hair. Brown 
has already proved that a horizontal section of the hair 
varies from an elongated ellipse with the Negro, to a circle 
with the Red- Skin, and that the hair of the Anglo-Saxon is a 
mean between the two. Primer Bey has resumed this study, 
and described the form of a horizontal section of the hair in 
several races belonging to the three fundamental types. He 
has proved that the elongated ellipse characterises Negro 
races in general, as well as the Hottentot-Bosjesman ; that 
the oval forms belong essentially to Aryan populations ; that 
more or less regularly circular forms characterise yellow, 
American, and other races, and that in this respect the 
allophylian white races (Basques) appear to resemble the 
preceding. 

Brown and Primer Bey moreover agree in the statement 
that a mixture of forms is found upon the heads of half- 
breeds. Exactly the same often happens in the crossing of 
the merino with races of sheep*with a coarse wool. 

I have hitherto only spoken of the characters furnished 



External Characters — Cranium, Face. 365 

by the beard and the hair when grown freely. But it is 
well known that the love of adornment, one of the most 
characteristic instincts of man, endeavours to modify nature 
in these two directions. This results in characters, which 
are doubtless artificial, but w T hich have sometimes a real 
value. This side of the question has often been attacked, 
and M. E. Cortambert has made it the object of a work, in 
which he has given a summary of the work of his pre- 
decessors in addition to his own. 

1 IX. Characters of the cranium and of the face. From 
the point of view of descriptive anthropology as well as 
from an anatomical point of view, the head is composed 
essentially of two regions, the cranium and the face. The 
former is covered solely by the hairy skin which follows all 
its contours, and it in reality therefore only presents osteo- 
logical characters. The general form, proportions, etc., are 
almost the same in the living man as in the skeleton. I 
will therefore go into greater detail upon this subject when 
treating of the latter. Here 1 will only remark that the 
inequality of the skin and of some subjacent muscular fibres 
necessitates some corrections in the comparison of measure- 
ments taken from the living head and from the skull. For 
example, the presence of the temporal muscles increases 
to a sufficiently sensible extent the transverse maximum 
diameter. Consequently the ratio of the latter to the 
anterio-posterior diameter becomes raised. This ratio, which 
constitutes the cephalic index, is one of the characters 
which anthropologists employ most frequently, and it was 
important to determine the correction to be made in case 
of comparison. Broca has shown that it is two units Avhen 
the ratio is expressed in the manner which I shall mention 
further on. 

The case is different with the face. Here the super- 
imposed soft parts play a part of w T hich the importance has 
been alternately exaggerated or neglected. William Edwards 
considered that races should be determined, as we judge of 
individuals, solely by the facial characters. Scrres, starting 



366 The Human Species. 

from the fact that the bony framework determines the 
general form and the proportion of the face, required that 
osteological characters only should be taken into account. 
Both were too exclusive. 

Doubtless the skeleton is important in the most super- 
ficial characters of the face. But the muscles, the cellular 
and adipose tissue, and the cartilages are much more deve- 
loped on the face than upon the cranium ; and from their 
greater or less extension, from their various relations, differ- 
ences of feature result which constitute so many characters; 
Unfortunately it is often very difficult to define the latter. 
The most detailed descriptions are rarely sufficient, and 
the most exact measurements are far from giving an idea 
of certain variations of the human figure. For example, 
they cannot make the difference intelligible, which is never- 
theless very sensible to the eye, which distinguishes the 
nose of a negro of Guinea from that of a Nubian negro. 

The nose is nevertheless one of the features of the face 
which is best adapted for investigations of this kind. Its 
length is determined by the point of attachment of the 
nasal bones to the frontal bone and the position of the 
nasal spine ; its breadth at the bridge depends upon the 
angle formed by the nasal bones ; its breadth at the base 
is more or less related to the anterior opening of the nasal 
fossae. But the form and development of the cartilages, as 
well as the thickness of the nostrils upon two verjr similar 
skulls, can modify considerably the type itself of this organ ; 
and the exterior nasal index can give no idea of these 
variations. The study of Topinard upon this subject, never- 
theless, possesses a real interest; but from the point of view 
of the characterisation of races, the researches made by 
Broca upon the nasal osteological index, which- we will 
discuss further on, has a much more important value. 

The characters drawn from the nose, which are observed 
upon the living body, are however most important. This 
organ is more or less pressed in, broad and flat among 
almost all Negroes, the greater part of the Yellow races, 



External Characters — Face. 367 

and certain allophylian Whites ; it is on the contrary 
narrow and prominent in fair white races. These two 
general types moreover present variations of which drawings 
only can give any idea. 

I may say the same with reference to the mouth. The 
thousand differences of form and dimensions which it can 
exhibit, from the negro of Guinea with his enormous and, 
as it were turned up lips, to certain aryan or Semitic Whites 
can neither be measured nor described. We can only point 
out the general characters when they become very pro- 
nounced. It may, however, be remarked that the thickness 
of the lips is very marked among all negroes, in consequence 
of their projection in front of the maxillary bones and the 
teeth. 

The mouth of the Negro presents another character which 
seems to me to have been generally neglected, and which 
has always struck me. It is a kind of clamminess at the 
outer border of the commissures, and which seems to 
prevent the small movements of the' corner of the mouth 
which play such an important part in the physiognomy. 
The dissections of M. Hamy have explained these facts. 
They have shown that in the Negroes the muscles of this 
region are both more developed and less distinct than in the 
Whites. 

Independently of the colour of the iris, the eye also 
exhibits differences which constitute so many characters, 
having at times a real value in the development of the eye- 
lids, and in the dimensions of the palpebral fissure. Every- 
one knows Chinese eyes, which slope from below upwards, 
and from inwards outwards. They have been regarded as 
peculiar to Yellow races, whether pure or mixed. Neverthe- 
less these oblique eyes are found pretty frequently in Europe, 
principally among women, and are united to a fairness and 
freshness of colour which are almost exceptional, as well as to 
features unanimously regarded as most pleasing. 

The general form of the countenance, and some other 
peculiarities drawn from the prominence of the cheek bones, 



368 The Human Species. 

from trie form and prominence or retreat of the chin, etc., 
favoured some considerations analogous to the preceding. 
But here again the external characters are wanting in the 
precision which we shall find in the osteological characters. 

X. Characters drawn from the trunk and limbs. When 
speaking of proportions I have already pointed out some of 
these characters ; I will return to them when speaking of the 
skeleton. I will here only make a few remarks, and point 
out two remarkable features. 

One of the peculiarities, which, in our European eyes, 
chiefly contribute to bodily beauty, is the width of the 
chest, of the waist, and of the hips. A body of a uniform 
breadth we consider ungraceful. It is a feafure which is 
met with among several yellow and American races. The 
comparison of these dimensions will furnish indices which it 
is interesting to compare. But we have only taken that of 
the chest, or more generally its circumference. To judge 
from the numbers given by various authors, the Negroes 
of Fernando Po would have the most fully developed chest. 
With them, its circumference would be 952 cm. (37*48 
inches). The English would come next, and the minimum 
observed would be among the Todas, whose thorax would 
only have a circumference of 81*8 cm. (32*2 inches). 

The Hottentot, and especially the Bosjesman women, 
exhibit, in a high degree, two peculiarities, which have for 
a long time been considered special to them, but which have 
been met with elsewhere : I mean steatopygia and the 
Hottentot's apron (tablier). The first consists of a strange 
development of the fatty folds in the buttocks, from which 
results an enormous protuberance. The Hottentot Venus, 
of which a model exists in the Paris Museum, gives a good 
example of it, but it appears that this character can be still 
more exaggerated. It is the reproduction in man of a feature 
noticed by Pallas as characteristic of certain races of sheep 
of Central Asia, among which the atrophy of the tail 
coincides with the appearance of enormous fatty protu- 
berances. 



Steatopygia — Tablier. 369 

Steatopygia has been noticed among various black and 
Negroid populations. It was very noticeable in a queen of 
Poun, figured upon the Egyptian temple built by M. Mariette, 
for the Exhibition of 1867. Livingstone assured us that it 
had begun to manifest itself among certain women of the 
Boers, who are nevertheless of a quite pure white race. 
But nowhere is it so pronounced as among the Bosjesman 
women, and it constitutes one of the most striking cha- 
racters of the race. 

It is not exactly the same with " tablier" resulting from 
the exaggerated development of the labia minora, which 
project out of the vulva and hang down in front of the 
thighs. This feature is found more or less developed in a 
number of races, and has given rise to the practice of circum- 
cision among women. In Europe there is doubtless scarcely 
an accoucheur who has not noticed it on some occasion in 
some perfectly pure Whites. Nevertheless it seems that 
among the Bosjesman women it sometimes reaches a de- 
velopment which is not noticed elsewhere. In the Hot- 
tentot Venus, of which the Paris Museum possesses a model, 
the length from the right reaches 55 millimetres (2'16 
inches), and from the left 61 millimetres (2'4 inches) ; the 
breadth is 34 millimetres (133 inch) from the right, and 
from the left 32 millimetres (1*26 inch). The thickness, 
which is uniform, is 15 millimetres ("58 inch). 



CHAPTER XXX. 

ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS. 

I. Osteological characters. — Without denying the very 
great value of external characters, I agree with almost all 
anthropologists, in attaching a greater importance to ana- 
tomical characters in the majority of cases. Unfortunately, 
the comparative anatomy of human races has, as yet, made 
but little progress. The fact is, that the solid portions, the 
skeleton alone, have, necessarily, been the subject of serious 
examination. The study of the perishable portion has 
scarcely been begun. For this, and several other reasons, I 
shall distinguish these two orders of facts, and discuss sepa- 
rately our knowledge of osteological characters and organic 
characters. 

The skeleton, the framework of the body, presents the 
same regions as the latter : we can distinguish the head, the 
trunk, and the extremities. Each of these regions offers 
peculiarities more or less connected with the diversity of 
human groups. The best studied, and fortunately the most 
important, are furnished b} 7 the head. For some years 
craniological collections have been singularly on the in- 
crease ; and throughout Europe, the study has been entered 
upon with equal ardour. Craniometrical methods and in- 
struments have multiplied, perhaps a little beyond the actual 
need. MM. Vogt and Topinard have made an excellent 
summary of this mass of research. I can only refer to 
their publications. I cannot here even reproduce all the 
results already acquired, and must confine myself to pointing 
out a few of the principal ones. 



Osteological Characters — Cephalic Index. 371 

II. Characters drawn from the cranium alone. — From an 
anthropological point of view, as well as in an anatomical 
sense, the skull is divided into two parts, the cranium and 
the face. Each of these regions has its special indications, 
while new characters again rise from their reciprocal relations. 
Let us briefly review them. 

The general form of the cranium depends, above all, upon 
the relation existing between the length measured from 
before backwards, and the breadth taken from one side to 
the other. The honour of having appreciated the import- 
ance of this relation belongs to Retzius. He made use of it 
to establish the distinction between dolichocephalic, or long- 
headed races, and brachy cephalic, or short-headed races. 

Retzius considered the relations 7 : 9 or 8 : 10 as repre- 
senting the limit, left by him uncertain, of dolichocephaly^ 
and brachycephaly. M. Broca proposed the formation of a 
third group, which should comprise all crania, the length and 
breadth of which presented a relation comprised within these 
limits, and anthropologists now admit with him the mesati- 
cephalic races. In expressing these relations by decimals, 
and in creating the term horizontal cephalic index, now 
universally adopted, M. Broca has, moreover, facilitated, to an 
extraordinary degree, the study of this character, and the 
ideas to which it may give birth. His subdivision of the two 
extreme groups into two has also, in certain cases, been an 
advantage. He has himself, however, shown that it is not 
wise to go too far in this direction. 

The definitions of dolichocephaly, mesaticephaly, and 
brachycephaly have, it seems to me, been somewhat arbi- 
trary. I draw this conclusion from the following tables, 
which I borrow from MM. Broca and Pruner Bey. They 
represent the means discovered by these eminent investiga- 
tors. I have merely substituted the serial order for the 
purely geographical distribution adopted by M. Pruner. 
Moreover, I have continued the calculation to the second 
decimal place, thus rendering the distinctions more minute, 
and the general result more striking. 



37* 



The Human Species. 



INDICES OF HUMAN RACES AFTER M. PRUNER BEY. 



0-93 

0-87 

0-86 



0-85 



0-81 



0-83 



82 



Races. Indices 

Americans of the Pampas, of 

Bogota, etc. 
Americans of Vera Paz . . 
Germans of the south (men) £ 
G ermans of the south (women) ) 
Laos 

Annamites 

Brachycephalic Turks 
Brachycephalic Malays 
Javanese 
Borneans 

Brachycephalic Peruvians 
Puelches 
Lapps 
Ancient brachycephalic Euro 

peans 
Kalmucks 

Brachycephalic Bretons 
Brachycephalic Kanaks ) 

Aetas (women) > 

Ancient Europeans (women) ) 
Malays (women) . . . 0-81 
Brachycephalic New Guincans 
Mexicans 
Brachycephalic Peruvians V 0*80 

(women) 
Indo-Chinese 
Tagals 

Belgians )■ . . . 079 

Dutch 
Hovas 

Papuans with aquiline nose 
Red- Skins 
Chinese (women) 
Bellovaques (men) 
Modern Greeks 
Kabyles (women) 

Jews (women) , ~ __ 

Kourouglis (men and women x ' 
New Guineans 
Intermediary Americans 
Araucanians (men) 



0-78 



0-77 



Races. 
Chinese (men) / 
Ancient Romans ) 
Kabyles (men) 
Aetas (men) 
Tasmanians (women) 
Dolichocephalic Celts 
Scandinavians (men) 
Dolichocephalic Bretons , 
Modern Italians (men and~"| 

women) 
Arabians 
Sacalaves (men) 
New Zealanders 
Dolichocephalic Kanaks 
Micronesians 
Tasmanians (men) 
New Guineans (women) 
Dolichocephalic Turks 
Etruscans 
Phoenicians 

Scandinavians (women) 
Tahitians 
Americans of Brazil, Peru, etc. 
Araucanians (women) 
Negroes (women) 
Kaffirs 

Semitic Hindoos 
Ancient Celts (men & women) 
Irish 

Negroes (men) 
Sacalaves (women) 
Australians (women) 
Brahmans 
Dravidians 
Persians 

Bellovaques (women) 
Bosjesmans 
Hottentots (women) 
Hottentots (men) 
Esquimaux 



Indices. 
. 0-77 



0-7G 



Y 0-75 : 



0-75 



0-74 



0-73 



0-72 



70 



0-C9 



INDICES OF HUMAN RACES AFTER M. BROCA. 



Races. Indices. 

TEUE BBACHYCEPHALI. 

1-03 
0-93 

0-85 



Americans (deformed crania) 

Syrians of Gebel Cheikh, 

slightly deformed 
Lapps 

Bavaria and Swabia 
Auvergnats of St. Nectaire 



0-84 



Races. 
Finns 
Indo- China 

SUB-BEACHYCEPHALI. 
Alsace and Lorraine 
European Russia 
Bretons of the Cotes du Nord 

(Gaulish cantons) 
Javanese 
Turks 



Indices. 
. 0-83 




Osteological Characters — Cephalic Index. 373 



0-81 



o-so 



Eaces. Indices. 

SUB-BRACHYuEPHALi — continued. 
Different Mongols ) 

Bretons of the Cotes du Nord / 
(Breton cantons) ) 

Estonians ) 

French Basques \ 

MESATICEPHALI. 

North Americans, undef ormed 
South Americans, undeformed 
Non- Javanese Malays 
North French, Bronze age 
Parisians of 16th cent. 
Parisians of 12th cent. 
Parisians of 19th cent. 
Gailo-Romans 
Roumanians 
Mexicans, undeformed 

SUB-DOLICHOCEPHALI. 

Spanish Basques of Zaraus 

Gauls of the Iron age 

Malgaches 

Chinese 

Copts 

Merovingian French 

Sclaves of the Danube 

Tasmanians 



0-79 



0-78 



0-77 



0-76 



Races. 
SUB-DOLICHOCEPHALI- 



Indices. 
■continued. 



Polynesians 

Ancient Egyptians 

Guanchcs 

Corsicans of Avapezza of the 

18th cent. } 0-75 

Bohemians of Boumania 
Papuans 
North French of the polished 

stone age 

TKTTE DOLICHOCEPHALI. 

Kabyles ) 

Arabs \ 

Nubians of Elephantine 

South French ; Neolithic age 

(cave Homme-Mort) 
France; Palaeolithic age 
Negroes of West Africa 
Bengalese 
Kaffirs 

Hottentots and Bosjesmans 
Australians ) 

New Caledonians > 
Esquimaux ) 



0-74 

0-73 

0-72 
0-71 



These tables mutually confirm, and complete each other 
in general results. The secondary differences which dis- 
tinguish them, are doubtless occasioned, on the one hand, by 
the number of crania employed by the two authors to obtain 
their means; on the other, from some diversity in the use of 
these materials. M. Pruner Bey distinguished the sexes, 
which are united by M. Broca : the latter has placed in 
one group the Hottentots and Bosjesmans, separated by M. 
Pruner, etc. 

From M. Broca's table it appears that the mean of all 
these indices, leaving deformed skulls out of the question, is 
078. From a numerical point of view this would be that of 
true mesaticephaly. The mean group ought, it seems to me, 
to descend equally as it rises, and consequently to absorb at 
least a part of M. Broca's sub-dolichocephali. In fact, upon 
inspecting the two tables, it appears that the indices above 
74 and below 079 comprise the greater number of races 
belonging to the three fundamental types, and taken from all 



374 The Human Species. 

parts of the world. It seems to me that true mesaticephaly 
should be comprised within these limits. I do not, however, 
propose that those which have been adopted should be 
changed. 

These tables give rise to many other observations, of which 
I shall only point out the principal. 

M. Pruner Bey carried his calculations to the third place 
of decimals; M. Broca to the fourth. I have gone no 
further than the second, that the eye may be more easily 
attracted by the series formed by these numbers, so im- 
portant in the characterization of races. It should be re- 
membered that the greater number are means taken from a 
certain number of crania. Were there a sufficient number 
of subjects for each race, and all the indices taken from each 
arranged in serial order, the distance from one to the other 
would undoubtedly be no longer 01, but would be diminished 
to 0001, or even less. The insensible shades observed in 
passing from one individual to another would here be as 
remarkable as in the comparison of stature. 

There is no need to insist at any length upon the inter- 
crossing, so strikingly betrayed by the two tables. We see 
that the same index places side by side the most dissimilar 
races, the South German with the Annamite, the Breton 
with the Kalmuck, the Belgian with the Tagal, the Parisian 
with the Malay, the Italian with the Maori, etc., and that 
by their several indices the white races are scattered through- 
out almost all the coloured races. I need not return to the 
consequences which may be drawn from these facts from a 
monogenistic point of view. 

The yellow and black races are not so widely separated as 
the white ; the former are either brachycephalic or mesati- 
cephalic, the latter all dolichocephalic, with the exception of 
the Aetas. I have shown that the latter belong to a group 
of populations extending from the Andaman and Philippine 
Islands to Torres Strait in Melanesia, penetrating New 
Guinea, and forming a special branch in the midst of the 
Melanesian Negro population. 



Osteological Characters — Cephalic Index, 375 

The case appears to be somewhat similar in Africa. This 
discovery, entirely contrary to the ideas generally maintained 
till the present time, is due to M. Hamy. This excellent 
investigator recognized brachycephaly in six skulls taken 
from the Paris collections, and obtained from Cape Lopez, or 
the mouths of the Fernand Yaz. Shortly afterwards, M. 
Duchaillu having brought from the same districts ninety- 
three skulls, the measurements of which were made public 
by Englishmen, M. Hamy calculated the indices, and found 
that twenty-seven of these crania were brachycephalic or 
mesaticephalic. There is then every indication that the 
Negro stock in Africa presents a special branch corresponding 
•to the Negritoes. This result is confirmed by Schweinfurth, 
who places the Niams-Niams and some neighbouring tribes 
amongst the brachycephali. 

We see that the horizontal cephalic index cannot serve as 
a starting point in the classification of human races, as 
Ketzius imagined it might. We also see, however, that all 
the value which was attributed to it by its author, is pre- 
served in the characterization of secondary groups. 

The extreme means given in M. Pruner Bey's table were 
found in two American races, the Esquimaux and the in- 
habitants of the Pampas of Bogota, etc. Whatever the 
differences may be which separate these two races, it is 
evident that neither of them belong either to the black or 
the white type. They show the greatest affinity to the 
yellow type. 

From one extreme mean to the other there is, according to 
M. Pruner, a difference of 0*246 between the cephalic indices ; 
according to M. Broca of 014552 only. This difference rests 
chiefly upon the fact of M. Broca rejecting, as deformed, skulls 
which M. Pruner seems to accept without observation. Again, 
the individual indices present a much wider variation than 
would, at first sight, be expected. Huxley mentions a Mongol 
whose cephalic index rises to 0*977, and a New Zealander, 
of unmistakable Melanesian origin, in whom it descends to 
0*62.9. The difference is, therefore, 0'348. 
17 



376 The Human Species. 

The general relations of length and breadth in the cranium 
of human races is apparent from birth. Nevertheless, from 
the researches of Gratiolet, it appears that dolichocephaly is 
due to a relative development of bones, which varies with 
age. In the infant it is essentially occipital, in the child 
temporal, and fronted in the adult man. In the woman the 
elongation of the cranium depends essentially on the length 
of the temporal regions ; in this respect, then, the woman 
remains a child all her life. 

Starting from these primary results, the same observer has 
compared dolichocephalic Whites with African and Melane- 
sian Negroes. He found that the frontal dolichocephaly of 
the former was replaced in the two black races by an 
occipital dolichocephaly. M. Broca has established the same 
fact in comparing Basques with Parisians. Thus the dis- 
tinction proposed by M. Gratiolet furnishes a secondary 
character, which may be of use in certain cases, but which 
falls very short of the importance with which some have 
attempted to invest it. They would consider occipital 
dolichocephaly as a character which widely separates the 
Negro from the "White ; the observations of M. Broca show 
that this is not at all the case, and from the observations of 
M. Gratiolet it appears that we have here only the persistence 
of an anterior condition common to both. The Negro and. 
the Basque preserve throughout life the cephalic character of 
the infant Parisian, thus forming one of the many examples of 
that cessation of evolution which, as we see more distinctly 
every day, plays a considerable part in the characterization 
of human races. 

The study of the horizontal cephalic index might lead to 
many other remarks. I shall only recall the results obtained 
by M. Die'trici. It appears from his calculations that, the 
total population of the globe given at 1288 millions, there 
are 1026 millions of dolichocephali, and only 262 millions of 
brachycephali. But the Berlin savant places in the first 
category the Chinese, who are mesaticephali, and must alone 
be reckoned at 421 millions. All these facts considered, it 



Osteological Characters — Cranial Measurements. $77 

appears to me, from the tables of MM. Pruner Bey and Broca, 
and other data, received up to the present time, that the 
mesaticephali are much more numerous than either the 
brachycephali or dolichocephali. If mesaticephaly is taken 
in the sense pointed out above, the latter in their turn 
predominate over the brachycephali, owing chiefly to Afri- 
can black populations, -which we are daily learning to esti- 
mate as much more dense than they were formerly thought 
to be. 

Retzius only compared the antero-posterior and transverse 
maximum diameters. Later investigators have sought the 
relation between the latter and the height of the cranium. 
The vertical cephalic index has thus been obtained, the im- 
portance of which is at once evident. It plays an equally 
important part in the table of M. Pruner Bey, and gives rise 
to considerations analogous to those just discussed. I cannot, 
however, enter into all these details without exceeding the 
limits of this book. From the same motive I shall not men- 
tion the other measurements of the cranium, maximum and 
minimum frontal diameters, total circumference, antero- 
posterior arc, and others. 

The composition of the cranium can only vary within very 
narrow limits. Nevertheless, in Negroes, in ancient Egyp- 
tians, etc., the squamous portion of the temporal bone is 
sometimes united to the frontal without the partial inter- 
position of the wings of the sphenoid. This is a remarkable 
fact, being in direct contradiction to the principles of con- 
nections, so justly regarded by Etienne Geoffroy as one of the 
most essential principles of comparative anatomy. 

In the preceding case, the composition of the cranium is 
altered by the suppression of a normal suture. This may also 
be caused by the appearance of an abnormal suture, by which 
two distinct bones are formed from a single one. Such is the 
case when the occipital bone seems to divide, so as to leave 
its upper portion free. We then have what has been called 
the epactal bone, or bone of the Incas, because Rivers and 
Tschudy imagined this conformation to be a character pecu- 



378 The Human Species. 

liar to the race. M. Jacquart, however, showed that it was 
merely the result of a cessation in the evolution of the occi- 
pital bone, of which examples are found in the most different 
human races. It is to a similar phenomenon that the per- 
sistence of the medio-frontal suture is due. This, again, is 
doubtless universal, but much more frequent in the Aryan 
white race than in coloured races, and especially in the 
Negroes. 

These facts are connected, moreover, with a group of ob- 
servations and ideas which Gratiolet has brought forward on 
several occasions. According to this ingenious observer, the 
anterior sutures are the first to unite in inferior races, while 
in superior races the obliteration commences with the pos- 
terior sutures. Again, the sutures," as a whole, have a ten- 
dency to disappear rapidly in savage races, while the isola- 
tion of the bones of the cranium is persistent in civilized 
races, and particularly in the European White. This disposi- 
tion allows a continuance of the development of the brain, 
although it gradually becomes slower. Gratiolet thus ex- 
plains the continuance of the intellectual power, so remark- 
able in men who have constantly exercised their intelligence. 
The statistic researches of Dr. Pomerol, while correcting all 
that is absolute in this theory, seems to confirm it in some 
respects. 

Since I am unable to review all the cranial characters, I 
shall pass by those drawn from the prominence of different 
bones, the occipital indices of Broca, the cephalo-spinal of 
Mantegazza, etc. I shall only say a few words upon the posi- 
tion of the foramen magnum, and the sphenoidal angle of 
Welker, but I shall dwell more at length upon the capacity 
of the cranium. 

D'Aubenton, in a special work, shows that the foramen 
maonum is always placed further back in animals than in 
man. Soemmering remarked that it seemed more so in the 
Negro than in the White ; and this opinion, which was ap- 
parently confirmed by some measurements, was at once ac- 
cepted by a number of anthropologists, and regarded by them 



Ostcological Characters — Sphenoidal Angle. 379 

as a simian character, but this result was attained by con- 
sidering the position of the aperture relatively to the entire 
length of the skull, including the face. Now it is at once 
evident that the forward development of the latter, by reason 
of prognathism, would increase the apparent retreat of the 
former. 

The researches of M. Broca upon cranial projections 
enable us to state this problem correctly, and to give the 
solution of it. M. Broca compared 60 Europeans with 35 
Negroes. Representing the total projection by 1000, he 
found that in the former the anterior projection was 475, 
and in the latter 498. The anterior border of the foramen 
magnum is then further removed from the alveolar border in 
the Negro than in the White, the difference being 23. But 
this projection includes, with the anterior cranial projection, 
the facial projection, which is 65 in the European and 138 
in the Negro. If this is deducted from the former, we find 
that the White stands first in cranial projection alone, and 
that the difference is 50. 

We learn from these calculations that, relatively to the 
cranium to which it belongs, the foramen magnum is placed 
more forward in the Negro than in the White, which is by 
no means the case in apes. These same calculations demon- 
strate the real difference which here distinguishes the two, 
that, namely, of the forward prolongation of the face. 

In drawing comparisons between men and apes, the 
sphenoidal angle discovered by M. Yirchow, studied by M. 
Welker, and which, thanks to M. Broca, may be measured 
without making a section of the skull, presents special 
interest. It presents an inverse evolution in man, and the 
Quadrumana during growth. This may be seen from the 
annexed calculations borrowed from M. Welker : — 



3 8o 



The Human Species. 



MAN. 

8 Infants .... 141° 

10 Children from 10 to 15 years 137° 

30 Adult Germans . . . 134° 



Difference 



-7° 



Sajou, at birth 
„ adult 



APES. 



Difference 



Orang., young 
„ adult . 
old . 



Difference 



. 140 6 

. 174° 

. +34° 

. 155° 

. 172° 

. 174° 

. + is° 



I have already insisted that facts of this nature are irre- 
concilable with those theories which attribute a more or less 
pithecoid ancestor to man. 

In discussing ' the cranial cavity, our special object is to 
supply the deficiency of information upon the volume and 
weight of the brain. Now, from, this point of view, we may 
easily fall into error. The bony cabinet and its contents are 
developed, to a certain extent at least, independently. This 
is very clearly demonstrated by a fact which was observed 
by Gratiolet, and is too frequently forgotten. The subject 
is an infant in whom the cranium presented the normal 
conformation. The brain was, nevertheless, almost entirely 
wanting. In well-formed men the sinuses and coverings of 
the brain may very easily be more or less developed accord- 
ing to the individual or race, and influence the relative 
dimensions of the brain. 

Moreover, the exact measurement of the capacity of the 
cranium is attended by difficulties which have not yet been 
entirely surmounted. In spite of the improvements intro- 
duced by M. Broca in his method of measuring with shot, 
consecutive measurements of the same cranium by the same 
observer will vary considerably in the result. 

Again, there are peculiarities to be taken into considera- 
tion, the importance of which has long been neglected. We 
have known for several years that the stature has an 
influence upon the weight of the brain. It cannot be with- 
out influence upon the cavity by which the latter is enclosed. 
M. Broca has shown that sex is of itself a cause of variation. 
In the woman the mean cranial capacity is always less 



Osteological Characters — Cranial Capacity. 381 

than in the man, and the difference varies between different 
races. 

Nevertheless, in examining a sufficient number of skulls, 
the causes of error may counterbalance each other, and the 
means may be accepted as giving results sufficiently near 
the truth. The results obtained by the same observer are 
especially favourable for comparison, and from them certain 
results may be obtained. There is no reason, therefore, why 
the cranial capacity should not be considered as a character 
well worthy of study. But its importance must not be 
exaggerated. 

M. Broca arrived at the following result, in considering 
the distinction of extreme races. The cranial capacity of 
the Australian being represented by 100, that of the African 
Negro is 11 1*60, and that of fair European races 124*8. 

1 borrow from my eminent colleague the following table, 
published by M. Topinard in his Antkropologie. This table 



EACES. 


MEN. 


WOMEN. 


DIFFERENCE. 


Cavern of Homme Mort. Neo- 


1616 


1507 


109 


lithic 








Gallo-Bretons .... 


1599 


1426 


173 


Auvergnats . 
Spanish Basques 
Bas- Bretons 




1598 
1574 
1564 


1445 
1356 
1366 


153 

218 
198 


Contemporary" Parisians . 
Guanches . . . 




1558 
1557 


1337 
1353 


221 
204 


Corsicans . . 




1552 


1367 


185 


Esquimaux . . . 
Chinese . 




1539 
1518 


1428 
1383 


111 
135 


Merovingians 
New Caledonians 




1504 
1460 


1361 
1330 


143 
130 


Negroes of West Africa 




1430 


1281 


179 


Tasmanians 




1452 


1201 


251 


Australians . 




• 1347 


1181 


156 


Nubians . 




1329 


1298 


31 



gives the mean cranial capacity, in cubic centimetres, for a 
certain number of races in both sexes. I have merely 
substituted the serial order in the men for the almost 



382 The Human Species. 

geographical division of the author, and calculated the 
difference between the sexes. 

We here observe facts of intercrossing similar to those 
which I have so often pointed out. The Merovingians, a 
white race of the first order, are placed between the yellow 
Chinese and the New Caledonians, Melanesian Negroes. 

But the chief value of this table is to show into what 
serious errors an estimation of the intellectual development 
of a race from its cranial capacity would lead us. By such 
an estimation, the troglodytes of the cavern of L'Homme- 
Mort would be superior to all races enumerated in the 
table, including contemporary Parisians, and the Chinese 
would come after the Esquimaux. The French populations 
occupy, it is true, the upper portion of the table, and the 
several Negro races are at the bottom. But here, again, 
when we find the Nubians following closely upon the 
Australians, we must confess that there can be no real 
relation between the dimensions of the cranial capacity and 
social development. We meet, moreover, with similar ques- 
tions when we turn our attention to the brain. 

The following table, which I borrow from Morton, is as 
instructive as the preceding. It includes a greater number 
of races. Moreover, the American savant has not only 
given the means, but also the maxima and minima as 
established by his researches. His measurements are given 
in cubic inches. As they are only required for comparison 
with those of other observers, I have not reduced them to 
cubic centimetres. I have again confined myself to arranging 
the means in a descending series, and to calculating the 
differences between the maxima and minima. 



Osteological Characters — Cranial Capacity. 383 



RACES. 


MEAN. 


MAX. 


MIN. 


DIFF. 




96 




105 


91 


14 


Germans ) 
Anglo-Americans J ' 


90 


I 


114 


70 


44 


97 


82 


15 




89 




98 


84 


14 


Greco-Egyptians of the Catacombs 


88 


I 




74 


23 




87 


( 


97 


78 


19 




86 


5 




68 


29 


Persians ) 




) 








Armenians > . . \ 




1 


91 


75 


19 


Circassians ) f 










Iroquois i I 


81 


j 








Lenapes ( ) 




r 


104 


70 


34 


Cherokees C * 




( 








Shoshones j 




) 








African Negroes ) 
Polynesians j ' 


83 


1 


99 


65 


34 




84 


82 


2 


Chinese ) 


82 


! 


91 


70 


21 


Creole Negroes of North America ] 


89 


73 


16 


Hindoos ) 




( 


91 


77 


14 


Ancient Egyptians of the Catacombs > 


80 




96 


68 


28 


Fellahs J 




( 


96 


66 


30 




79 


\ 


92 


67 


25 


Peruvians ~) 




101 


58 


47 




75 


\ 


83 


68 


15 


Hottentots ) 




83 


63 


20 



This table, borrowed from one of the most eminent 
supporters of polygenism, should, I think, excite reflections 
in all who pay any attention to facts. 

We find the Chinese placed, by their mean cranial capacity, 
below the Polynesians, the African Negroes, and the savage 
tribes of North America. Is this really the position which 
their civilization assigns to them ? 

In Morton's table the Creole Negroes of America fall 
below the African Negroes by the lesser development of the 
same cavity. Meigs has confirmed this curious fact in 
several ways, and has even made the difference still wider ; 
80 8 for the former and 83*7 for the latter. And yet it is 
universally acknowledged that Negroes born in America are 
intellectually superior to their African brothers. Even Nott 
allows that it is so. With them, therefore, the intelligence 
increases, while the cranial capacity diminishes. 



384 The Human Species. 

This fact is the more singular since the observations of 
M. Broca upon Parisian skulls of the thirteenth to the 
nineteenth century show that the cranial capacity increases 
with general intellectual progress. The measurements taken 
by the same observer upon individuals belonging to the edu- 
cated and illiterate classes lead to the same conclusion. 

Still, however, we cannot disregard the calculations of 
Morton and Meigs; and this experience, bearing upon 
numerous populations of the same race, seems to establish 
beyond a doubt the fact, which already clearly results from 
the comparison of different races, namely, that the develop- 
ment of the intellectual faculties of man is, to a great extent, 
independent of the capacity of the cranium and the volume 
of'the brain. 

I must here confine myself to the statement that the dimi- 
nution of the cranium is, in North America, one of the 
characters of the Creole Negro race, derived from the Afri- 
can Negro race. 

The intercrossing of races is again demonstrated in this 
table by the means. The Hindoos and ancient Egyptians 
are separated from the other White races of the Negroes, 
Chinese, Polynesians, and Red-Skins. 

But the maxima and minima show still more clearly how 
far this confusion would be carried, if individuals were 
compared. Hottentots and Australians, by their maxima of 
83, would stand before Germans and Anglo-Americans, 
whose minimum is not so high. With much greater reason 
would they be placed in the midst of all the other races, 
which, by their means, are placed above them. This is not 
all. Between the highest and the lowest mean, between the 
English and Hottentots, or Australians, the difference in 
cranial capacity is only twenty-one cubic inches. The differ- 
ence between the maximum and minimum of the Chinese is 
exactly the same. And it is much greater in nine other 
races, being more than double in the Germans and Peruvians. 

Do we meet with facts like those resulting from the 
measurements of Morton in the species of a single genera of 



Osteo logical Characters — Facial Index. 385 

plants and animals ? Certainly not ; and this table is of 
itself sufficient to prove that the human groups are races, 
which have little uniformity owing to the absence of selection, 
and in no sense species. 

III. Characters drawn from the face alone. — Similar con- 
clusions to those furnished by the examination of the cranium 
are suggested by that of the entire face. It may be either 
broad or long ; and in order to distinguish these two forms 
by special epithets, we may employ the terms euryopse, doli- 
chopse (ov/a?, theatrical mask). 

Since the face is much more irregular in form than the 
cranium, it gives rise to a far greater number of observations. 
Each one of its features would deserve our attention, were 
we writing a detailed work, and the more so, as such close 
study as this can only boast an existence of a few years. 
Failing space, I shall confine myself to pointing out the 
nature of the characters, and commenting upon some of the 
principal results. 

In the living subject the length of the face is estimated 
from the commencement of the hair to the extremity of the 
chin. But measurements of this kind are difficult to procure 
when exotic races are in question. Skulls, therefore, have 
been examined. In the latter, the inferior maxillary bone 
is very often wanting, and even the teeth have, in too many 
cases, fallen out. The inferior limit of the length of the face 
could therefore be carried no further than the alveolar 
border of the superior maxillary bone. The point sus-nasal 
of M. Broca serves as the superior limit. The interval com- 
prised within these limits is always less than the breadth 
measured across the zygomatic arches. In multiplying by 
100 the length of the face and dividing it by the breadth, 
M. Broca has obtained the facial index. The following are 
some examples which I borrow from him with M. Topinard : 



Esquimaux . , 


. 73-4 


New Caledonians . • 


. 66-2 


Negroes . . , 


. . 68-6 


Parisians . . 


. . 65-9 


Gallo-Bretons • 


. 68-5 


Australians . . • 


. 65-6 


Auvergnats . , 


. . 67-9 


Tasmanians . • 


G2-6 



386 The Human Species. 

In spite of the small number of these examples, they 
might lead to remarks similar to those which I have already 
brought forward on several occasions, and which I believe it 
to be unnecessary to repeat. 

The nose is one of the most striking features of the human 
face. Its general form and dimensions furnish some of the 
most special external characters in the distinction of races. 
But the morphological variations of this organ, presenting 
considerable difficulties, had long been neglected. M. Topin-* 
ard filled this gap, and showed that it is possible, even upon 
casts, to take measurements suitable for indices. Neverthe- 
less, it is the skull that, up to the present time, has contri- 
buted the clearest indications. The breadth of the nose taken 
at the opening of the nasal fossae and multiplied by 100, 
compared with the length from the spine to the naso-frontal 
articulation, has furnished M. Broca with the terms of the 
relation expressed by his nasal index, the study of which 
has led him to important results. 

Measurements, taken upon more than 1,200 skulls of all 
races, have enabled M. Broca to give 50*00 as the mean nasal 
index. In the entire number of races this index varies from 
42*33 (Esquimaux) to 58*38 (Houzouanas). We see that the 
variation is only 16'05. The individual differences are much 
wider, extending from 72*22 (Houzouanas) to 35*71 (Rouma- 
nians), thus giving a maximum variation of 36*51. 

The difference between the maximum and minimum in 
the same race is also very striking. When it exceeds ten, 
M. Broca seems to attribute it almost exclusively to crossing. 
He has made an ingenious application of this idea in the 
history of the crossing of the Franks with the races who pre- 
ceded them in France. But we can scarcely allow that this 
is always the case when we see the difference rising to 
21*98 in the Negroes of West Africa, and to 25*05 in the 
Hottentots and Bosjesmans. It seems to me that this is only 
the repetition of a fact which we have already proved with 
regard to the capacity of crania. 

M. Broca has made use of his nasal index to divide all 



Osteological Characters — Nasal Index. 387 

human races into three groups from this point of view. In 
races of a mean nasal index, or Mesorhinian, it only varies 
from 48 to 53. Below these are ranged races with a long 
narrow nose, or Leptorhinian ; and above, those with a broad 
and more or less flat nose, Platyrhinian. 

The groups thus obtained are fairly homogeneous. The 
.Leptorhinians would comprise only Whites, if the Esquimaux 
had not most unexpectedly stepped in. The Platyrhinian 
group is composed exclusively of Negroes, and includes all the 
races of this type studied by M. Broca, with the exception 
of the* Papuans, who are perhaps a mixed race. The Meso- 
rhinians embrace all the Yellow races, as well as the Poly- 
nesians, all the Americans and the Papuans, which I have 
just mentioned. We also find in this group Allophylian 
Whites, the Esthonians, and the Finns, who are thus separated 
from the Aryans and Semites. 

In short, if we take means alone into consideration, the 
nasal index, taken as a basis in the division of races, breaks 
a much smaller number of natural relations than the cha- 
racters which we have as yet discussed. Apart from the 
exceptions which I have just alluded to, intercrossing here 
only appears between races belonging to the same type. But 
as soon as we take individual variations into account, the 
mixture, so often observed, reappears. 

M. Broca has studied the nasal index not only in the adult, 
but also when in a state of evolution. He found that in an 
embryo of three months this index was 7680 ; in a perfect 
foetus, 62*18 ; in a child of six years, 50*20 ; in modern 
Parisians, '46'81. Thus the index constantly diminishes as 
the body approaches its definite form. Our author concludes 
from this fact that the variations observed in the same race 
may often be referred to an arrest of development, or rather 
an arrest of evolution, and he seems disposed to attach the 
platyrhinism of Negroes to the same cause. He thus adopts 
the idea of Serres upon the general character of the Negro, 
which ideas we shall examine presently. This I regard as a 
very correct explanation of the origin of one of the distinctive 



388 The Human Species. 

features which most clearly distinguishes the black race. It 
is not, however, to the nasal index alone that this fact is 
applicable, as I have already proved. 

The orbital index, also studied by M. Broca, is obtained 
by multiplying the vertical diameter of the orbit by 100, and 
dividing the product by the horizontal diameter. Considered 
from this point of view, races are divided into three groups, 
namely, the rnegasemes, whose mean index rises to 89 and 
higher; the mesosemes, whose index varies from 83 to 89 only; 
and the microsemes, whose index fall below 83. 

The highest mean index stated by M. Broca, is fo«nd in 
the Aymaras, in whom it rises to 98 8. But we know that 
the cranium is artificially deformed by this people, and the 
practice may in some measure influence the form of the 
orbit. The maximum in normal skulls was observed in 
the Polynesians of Hawai', where it was 95*40. The mini- 
mum of 77*01 is presented by the Guanches of Teneriffe. 

The mean maximum variation is then 1830. 

But here, as in all other cases, individual variations are 
much more considerable. Without even taking the Aymaras 
into consideration, whose index sometimes exceeds 109, M. 
Broca found 10833 in a Chinese, 105 in a Chinese and an 
Indian Red-Skin, 1 00 in two women of the Marquesas Islands, 
a Peruvian woman, a Malay, a Mexican, an Indo-Chinese, a 
woman of ancient Egypt, of Auvergne, and Paris. It is un- 
necessary to insist upon the meaning of these similarities. 

The smallest orbital index known is that of the old man 
of Cro-Magnon, which we have seen to be 01*36. Above the 
latter, and at small distances from each other, may be ranged 
a Tasmanian, a Merovingian, the Mentone man (of the same 
race as that of Cro-Magnon), a Guanche of Teneriffe, a New 
Caledonian, an Australian, a Nubian, a Kaffir, a Spanish 
Basque, an Auvergnat, and lastly, the woman of Cro-Magnon, 
whose index is 71*25. 

The maximum individual variation is then 46*87. 

Upon examining the table of M. Broca, we find that the 
white races are represented in the three groups. The Dutch 



Osteo logical Characters — Orbital Index. 389 

of Zaandam figure among the megasemes between the abori- 
gines of Mexico and those of North-west America. The 
Gallo-Bretons are placed in the same group, between the 
Chilians and the Indo-Chinese. The Whites form the great 
majority in the group of mesosemes, and are much the 
.most numerous in that of the microsemes. One of their 
races indeed, the natives of Teneriffe, terminates the series, 
immediately preceded by the Tasmanians and Australians. 

Thus, as far as the white race is concerned, the mean 
orbital index proclaims an intercrossing comparable with all 
that we have hitherto observed. The case is different with 
the two other fundamental types. They are distinctly sepa- 
rated by this character. All the yellow races are megasemes, 
for in my opinion the Lapps, considered by M. Broca to 
belong to them, are in reality allophylian Whites. All the 
negro races are mesosemes or microsemes. There is a differ- 
ence of 4*03 between the aborigines of Brazil representing 
the last megasemes which have not been deformed, and the 
Papuans of Toud Island, who have, of all Blacks, the highest 
orbital index. 

The usual intercrossing would undoubtedly reappear if we 
took individual variations into consideration. The difference 
9'89 which separates the man of Cro-Magnon from the woman 
of the same race is sufficient proof. 

M. Broca has studied the influence of sex and age upon 
the orbital index. I cannot follow him into these details, 
however interesting they may be. I will only remark, that, 
as in the case of the nasal index, it diminishes with the pro- 
gress of evolution, and remains in all races greater in the 
woman than in the man. The latter preserves, then, through- 
out life, a certain infantile character. 

This observation applies equally to races distinguished for 
the size of their orbital index. The yellow races, including 
the Chinese, present therefore, if compared with white races, 
an arrest of evolution. Yet the Chinese are far superior to 
all the microseme or mesoseme black races, and particularly 
the Australians and Tasmanians, who are only followed by 



39° The Human Species. 

the inhabitants of Teneriffe in the lowest places of the table. 
If we take the white as the normal type, we must regard 
these two populations as presenting an excess of 'evolution ; 
but this excess is still more marked in the Guanches of 
TenerifTe, who, in their mode of life, are considerably superior 
to the Tasmanians and Australians. 

A general conclusion follows from these facts, namely : that 
the characters resulting from an arrest or excess of evolution, 
are not of themselves a sign of superiority or inferiority. 

M. Broca has, with great propriety, compared the orbital 
index of apes with that of man. As might easily have been 
foreseen, the laws of development are the same in the 
highest groups of apes as in man. The influence of sex and 
age are as noticeable in the gorilla, the orang, and in the 
chimpanzee as in our own races. It seems to be less striking 
in the lower apes. 

The orbital index groups apes, like man, into megasemes, 
mesosemes and microsemes. But this character connects 
the anthropomorphous apes with the lowest types, with the 
cebidse, and even the lemuridse, which we now, from their 
embryogeny, connect with the ruminants or edentata. The 
genera of simiadas are divided into three groups. M. Broca 
draws from these facts the very first conclusion that no 
value, as characterising gradations, can be attributed to the 
orbital index. 

It is well known that in the Negro the entire face, and 
especially the lower portion, projects forward. This trait 
has been termed prognathism. In the living subject it is 
exaggerated by the thickness of the lips. But it is also 
apparent in the skull, and constitutes one of its most 
striking characters. M. Topinard has studied it in a special 
manner, and by a method of his own. He has with justice 
separated facial prognathism, which embraces the entire 
face, from the various maxillary and dental 'prognathisms, 
which distinctions I proposed some time ago. The index is 
here furnished by the relation existing between the height, 
and the horizontal projection of the region under considera- 



Osteo logical Characters — Prognathism. 391 

tioD. But M. Topinard has recently replaced this index by 
the angle formed by the 'profile lines with the horizontal 
plane. This is a happy modification, as it presents a more 
precise idea to the mind. 

The most important of the several prognathisms is that 
arising from the portion of the maxillary bone situated below 
the nose, and comprising the alveoli of the incisors and 
canines. This is the sub-nasal-alveolar prognathism, or the 
superior maxillary prognathism. It is this trait of the 
Negro which is opposed to the orthognathism of the White. 
This character suggests remarks similar to those which I 
have already made so often. It is the evident result of the 
following summary, which I borrow almost verbatim from 
M. Topinard's work. 

All races and all individuals are more or less prognathous. 
As a rule, in European races it is only slight ; it is much 
more marked in the Yellow and Polynesian races, and more 
strongly marked still in Negro races. Let us remark, however, 
that even mean indices place the Tasmanians (76°*28) above 
the Finns and Esthonians (75°'53), and very near the 
Merovingians (75°"54). 

The minimum prognathism, or maximum orthognathism, 
is found in the Guanches (81°*34), and the opposite extreme 
in the Namaquois and Bosjesmans (59°'88). The means 
establish limits between the various sub-divisions of the 
great fundamental races. Individual variations, however, in 
this case, as in others, obliterate these distinctions. In all 
races there are exceptions, Negroes in whom prognathism 
is no more marked than in Whites, and Whites in whom it is 
very pronounced. M. Topinard regards these exceptional 
cases as examples of crossing, atavism, or as pathological 
phenomena. There is certainly some truth in this view. 
I have long referred the prognathism, sometimes so curiously 
marked in certain Parisian women, to atavism. But we 
must also take into consideration these oscillations of 
characters, which we everywhere meet with in races not 
subject to selection with any special aim. 



39 2 The Human Species. 

In any case we cannot consider cessation of development 
as explaining the existence of a most striking prognathism 
in certain individuals of incontestably pure white race. In 
fact, far from diminishing with age, like the preceding 
characters, it rather increases. Even in the European, the 
child is manifestly more orthognathous than the adult. 
With regard to Negroes, Pruner Bey observed some time 
ago, and I have myself proved, that the child presents 
scarcely any trace of that feature, so characteristic in the 
parents. It is not till the period of puberty that it appears, 
and is rapidly developed. The forward projection of the 
maxillary bone is, therefore, in both races a fact of normal 
evolution, merely more marked in the one than in the other. 
Far from being the result of & cessation, prognathism betrays 
an excess of development. 

The absolute theory of Serres, which would treat the 
Negro merely as a White, subjected to a cessation of general 
development, is then here at fault. The truth is, that in the 
black race, organic evolution is less advanced than the 
general type of white race in some respects, and more so in 
others. This is a fact upon which I have long insisted in my 
lectures at the Museum, and which is confirmed, as we now 
see, by the more exact work of later years. 

We see, also, that, in order to account for the differences 
separating the Negro from the White, it is by no means 
necessary to have recourse to phenomena of atavism as 
exhibited by animals. Simple oscillations, above or below 
the mean in the normal evolution of man, are sufficient to 
explain it. I feel myself, therefore, still more strongly 
justified in opposing the human evolution theory to the 
simian evolution theory. 

The zygomatic arches, the malar bone, the superior and 
inferior maxillary bones also furnish the anthropologist with 
several more or less essential characters which sometimes 
acquire, in reference to a given race, a value superior to that 
which tr^ey have elsewhere. Such is the slight, elevation of 
the 'palatine vault in the Lapps. But I cannot here enter 



Ostco logical Characters — Facial Angle. 393 

into these details, and refer the reader to special books and 
memoirs. 

IV. Characters drawn from the skull considered as a 
whole. When, instead of studying the face or cranium alone, 
we consider them in their reciprocal relations, we see new 
traits appearing, furnishing a number of characters, some of 
which are of real importance. 

Let us, in the first place, remark that there may be either 
harmony or dysharmony between these two great regions. 
The skull is harmonic in the Negro, whose cranium and face 
are equally long,, and in the Mongol, who unites the two 
contrary characters; it is dysharmonic, as we have seen, in the 
old man of Cro-Magnon, and in the man of La Truchere, but 
for contrary reasons. 

Cuvier endeavoured to find the relation of the skull and 
the face by making an antero-posterior section of the skull, 
and directly measuring the surfaces of the section. He found 
that in the White the face represented about 0*25 of the 
skull, 030 in the Yellow, and 040 in the Black. These 
results entirely accord with those furnished by the study of 
prognathism. 

This relative difference of the development of the face led 
Camper to the conception of his celebrated facial angle. 
Struck by seeing painters represent Negroes as Whites 
painted black, he studied the anatomical characters of the 
skull, and gave, as the proper distinction, the angle formed 
by two lines ; the one passing from the auditory canal to 
the root of the nose, the other tangential to the forehead 
and to the nasal bone, both being represented upon a verti- 
cal projection of the model. Camper made use of his 
method to distinguish between the products of Greek and 
Roman art. He thus represented a decreasing scale from 
the works of art in statuary to non-adult apes. I repro- 
duce it, not because of its real value, but on account of 
the importance which has been attributed to it. The 
following are the variations of the facial angle, according to 
Camper : 



394 



The Human Species, 



Greek statues 


• 


* • 


100° 


Koman statues 


• 


• • 


95° 


White race . 


• 


• 


80° 



Yellow race «... 75" 
Black race . . . . 70° 
Young apes (superior type) . 65° 



Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, M. Jules Cloquet and 
Jacquard have adopted different methods in determining the 
facial angle. Morton, Jacquard, and M. Broca have invented 
instruments for measuring it directly. M. Topinard, after 
having examined the several methods, gives, with justice, his 
opinion in favour of that of Cloquet, which places the upper 
extremity of the angle at the alveolar border. M. Jacquard 
had chosen the nasal spine, remarking at the same time that 
the difference between the two angles might be of service in 
the calculation of prognathism. 

Camper, or rather those who have followed him, wished to 
consider the size of the facial angle as a sign of superior in- 
tellectual power. His graduated scale has evidently given 
rise to this false idea. Pathological facts should have 
sufficed to show how great was the error. The work of 
Jacquard has, moreover, established this fact beyond a doubt. 
This author has proved a difference of more than 1G° in the 
educated White of Paris, that is to say, 6° more than the 
distance established by Camper as separating the Negro 
from the White. Jacquard, again, has proved in the French 
race the existence of an angle of 90°, an angle which Camper 
believed to belong only to the ideal representations of the 
human form. Now this remarkable angular superiority was 
by no means accompanied by an exceptional intelligence. 

If we pass from the psychological to the anatomical mean- 
ing I shall have similar remarks to make. There has been 
much discussion as to the position of the upper extremity of 
the facial line, which, with the horizontal line, forms the 
angle of Camper. It has been thought desirable to avoid 
the frontal sinuses, and to seek in the facial angle indications 
relative to the dimensions of the encephalon, and not those of 
any "particular bone. I think, on the contrary, that we must 
be content with the latter, and not go further. It is evident 
that the dimensions of the encephalon are independsnt of the 



Osteological Characters — Parietal Angle. 395 

position of the frontal point, and that it may be more or less 
extended to the right, left, or behind this point without the 
facial angle being affected in any manner whatever. 

The exact determination of the means of the facial angle 
will still, however, be valuable, like all those which it is 
possible to calculate upon the human body, provided there 
is a sufficient distance between these means. But M. 
Topinard has shown that this difference is not more than 
three degrees. Without altogether renouncing the ideas of 
Camper, we see that science now has characters preferable to 
those which he discovered. 

A more important angle is the anterior parietal angle, 
formed on both sides of the skull by two lines tangential to 
the most prominent point of the zygomatic arch, and to the 
fronto-parietal suture. By taking the most prominent point 
of the parietal eminences as the second extremity, we obtain 
the posterior parietal angle. Prichard applied the term pyra- 
midal skulls to those in which these lines converged. I have 
endeavoured to measure the angle directly with an instru- 
ment of my own invention, and my first researches have led 
me to results which I believe to be interesting. The angle 
is sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, and may be altogether 
wanting when the two tangents are parallel. It is, then, 
sometimes positive, sometimes negative. The latter is the 
case in the foetus and infants of all races. The negative 
angle is also met with in adults. This trait appears to have 
been very striking in Cuvier, judging from a fine portrait of 
the great naturalist when still young. I have found it to 
be — 18° and — 22° in two living persons, both remarkable 
for their intelligence. The positive maximum which I ob- 
served upon an Esquimaux cranium was -f- 14°. I have em- 
ployed this character in my course of lectures to complete the 
characterization of a great number of races, but have never 
published any details. 

M. Topinard has just filled this gap in a work which con- 
firms, and at the same time, completes all my first results. 
His researches, bearing solely upon skulls, have given him 



396 The Human Species. 

as limits of individual variations, 5° and -f- 30° ; as limits of 
the means, -f 2°'5 and + 20 o, 3. He found in the New Cale- 
donians the most pyramidal heads. Finally, he has seen in 
children from the age of four months to sixteen years, the 
angle decreasing from — 24° to 0° and rise to 7°. 

Thus the negative parietal angle in the adult is nothing 
more than a persistent foetal or infantile character. It is 
evidently the result of a cessation of development, or rather, 
a cessation of evolution. Now, we have just seen that this 
character may exist in individuals endowed with an intelli- 
gence above the average, and even in men of genius. A 
cessation of evolution, the persistent trace of a fcetal or 
infantile condition, is not, therefore, necessarily a character 
of inferiority either in individuals or races. 

Two general views of the skull belong to the subject now 
under examination. Blumenbach regarded and represented 
the human skull from above. This is the norma verticalis, 
very valuable as permitting the appreciation of the general 
form of the cranium and some of its relations with the pro- 
jections of the face. Owen has, so to speak, regarded it from 
below, and insisted upon the differences which the inferior 
surface offers between man and the highest types of apes. 
Many characters of detail are brought to light by these two 
methods which I cannot even mention here. 

In this necessarily very incomplete sketch, I have been 
obliged to pass by in silence a large number of characters 
which are often of a very substantial importance. The 
greater number are obtained by the method of projections 
so ingeniously perfected by M. Broca, and by means of 
instruments, some of which were already in existence, such 
as the diagraph, and others invented by various savants, 
amongst whom we must, again, especially mention M. Broca. 

V. Skeleton of the trunk. I have dwelt at some length 
upon the characters drawn from the skeleton of the head ; I 
shall be more brief in discussing the other regions. They 
furnish characters perhaps equally important, but they have 
been much less studied, and the fault does not altogether lie 



Osteo logical Characters — Trunk. 397 

with anthropologists. It is not easy to procure skulls of the 
human races, even when we have to do with populations 
living close to us ; the difficulty of collecting a certain number 
of entire skeletons is far greater. 

The thoracic cage presents some interesting facts suffi- 
ciently well proved. In consequence of the form of the 
sternum, the greater or less curvature of the ribs, it is 
generally broad and flattened in the White, narrow and 
prominent in the Negro and the Bosjesman. According to 
d'Orbigny, it is still more prominent in certain Americans. 
An analogous fact has been observed in some populations of 
Asia Minor. 

The pelvis is the portion of the trunk which has been 
most thoroughly studied, by reason of the application which 
may be made of these researches to obstetrics. As a rule, 
comparisons have been limited to those between the Negro 
and the White. Vrolick, Weber, MM. Joulin, Pruner Bey, 
and, quite recently, M. Verneau, have gone much further. 
The latter, unfortunately, has not yet published his researches 
relatively to the distinction of races. Vrolick insisted upon 
some peculiarities of the pelvis of the Hottentot Venus, and 
endeavoured to establish certain relations between her and 
the ape. 

Weber found that in each of the races which he had 
studied, the pelvis presented a predominant form, which, on 
that account alone, became characteristic. He regarded the 
inlet as being generally oval and of large transverse diameter 
in the White ; quadrilateral and of large transverse diameter 
in the Mongol; round, and of equal diameters, in the 
American ; cuneiform and of large antero-posterior diameter 
in Negroes. 

M. Joulin has disputed nearly all the propositions of 
Vrolick and Weber, and seems unwilling to allow any 
characteristic value to the pelvis. M. Pruner Bey has shown 
without difficulty the great exaggeration of this view, and 
has determined the characters which distinguish, from this 
point of view, the White from the Black. 



398 The Human Species. 

The work of M. Verneau, much more complete than those 
of his predecessors, but with the anatomical part of which 
we are at present alone acquainted, will undoubtedly throw 
some light on the questions raised by their controversies. 
At present, moreover, the work of M. Yerneau confirms the 
assertions of the greater number of his predecessors, as to 
the reality of the characters of race to be found in the pelvis. 

Amongst these characters, there are some which have 
been pointed out in the Negro as indications of animalism. 
Even M. Pruner Bey, departing in this instance from his 
general practice, employs this expression, though at the same 
time restricting its meaning by his explanations. It seems 
to me much more natural to consider it as a trace of a 
condition, normal at a certain period, and more or less per- 
sistent according to the race. 

In fact, the verticality of the ilia, and the increase of the 
antero-posterior diameter of the pelvis in the Negro, have 
been chiefly insisted upon as recalling characters which may 
be observed in mammalia generally, and particularly in apes. 
But we meet with the same anatomical characteristics 
strongly pronounced even in the foetus and children of the 
White. They, and especially the latter peculiarity, are per- 
sistent to the age of seven years or more. Their existence 
in the Negro is, then, nothing more than relative cessation 
in the evolution of this region of the skeleton. It is, again, a 
foetal or infantile character, and not a character of animalism. 

VI. Skeleton of the limbs. — When speaking of fossil races, 
I pointed out certain morphological characters of the bones 
of the limbs, and among others, that of the perforation of the 
olecranon depression. This character may be observed in 
the Bosjesman, the Guanches, ancient Egyptians, and our 
own races. It seems to make its appearance in Western 
Europe with the Quaternary brachy cephalic races. M. 
Dupont met with it in the proportion of thirty per cent, 
among the men of the Lesse ; according to M. Hamy, this 
proportion is twenty-eight per cent, in the fossil race of 
Grenelle and only 4r66 per cent, in the present population. 



Osteological Characters — Limbs, 399 

I have already observed that the upper limb is a little 
longer in the Negro than in the White. The essential cause 
of this difference, is the relative elongation of the fore-arm. 
M. Broca, after comparing the radius and humerus of the 
two races, gives 79-43 for the Negro, and 73 8 2 for the 
European. M. Hamy, who had more numerous materials at 
his disposal, and followed a somewhat different method of 
measurement, obtained as result 78*04 and 72*19. 

This elongation of the radius, relatively greater in the 
Negro than in the White, is one of the traits to which the 
expression simian character has been most frequently 
applied. We know, in fact, that there is less inequality 
between the two regions of the arm in the anthropomorphous 
apes than in man, and that in the orang the length of the 
radius equals that of the humerus. 

The researches of M. Hamy enable us to consider this 
peculiarity of the Negro from an entirely human and truer 
point of view. This anthropologist has followed the evolution 
of this limb with a view of obtaining the changes which it 
involves in the relation under consideration. The folio win 9; 
table gives the results of these investigations : 



Embryo of 2\ months . 


. 88-88 


Infants of 1 — 10 days . 


76-20 


Foetus of 3 — 4 months 


. . 84-09 


?? 


„ 11—20 days . . 


74-78 


„ „ 4 — 5 months . 


. 80-42 


»> 


„ 21— 30 days . 


74-51 


„ „ 5 — 7 months 


. . 77-68 


>» 


„ 2 months . . . 


73-03 


„ „ 8 — 9 months . 


. 77-37 


>» 


„ 6 months to 2 yrs. . 


72-46 






» 


„ 5 months to 13^ yrs. 


72-30 



We see that in the development of the upper limb in man, 
there is a constant tendency to diminish the relation in 
question. We see also that the average of the Negro is 
almost that of a white foetus of five months. In his case, 
therefore, the elongation of the radius may be explained 
quite naturally by an arrest of evolution, without giving any 
occasion for comparing him with apes. Under what pretext 
should we return to the simian theory in connection with 
this character, after having seen that it is inapplicable in so 
many others ? 

18 



400 



The Human Species. 



The lower member presents similar facts. According to 
the calculations borrowed by M. Topinard from M. Broca, the 
tibia, when compared with the femur, gives a relation of 81 33 
for the Negro, and 79 72 for the White. 

By adding the figures which express the length of the 
radius and humerus, we have the total length of the whole 
arm, with the exception of the hand ; and by acting in the 
same manner for the femur and tibia, we have that of the 
lower member, with the exception of the foot. 

The relation of the former to the latter is 6S27 in the 
Negro, and 69*73 in the White. 

The following is a table of several races, drawn up by 
M. Topinard from his own researches and those of several 
other authors : 



- 


.Relation of the 


Relation of the Relation of the ' 


Races. 


inf. to the 


femur to the 


tibia to the 1 




sup. member. 


humerus. 


femur. 

| 


Annamites .... 


67-5 


76-7 


67-5 


Tasmanians , . , . 


68-2 


83-5 


84-3 


Aenos ) 
Bosjesmans \ * 


68-4 j 


75-2 


76-8 


755 


83-5 


Andaman Islanders . . . 


70-3 


79-9 


81-8 


Australians .... 


70-7 


75-6 


76-9 


Blacks of Pondichcry . . . 

... . 


717 


82-9 


84-4 



We see that, by this character, the European White is placed 
between the African Negro and the Andaman Islander. 

I have already mentioned some remarkable morphological 
modifications, such as the prominence of the linea aspera in the 
femur, the platycnemism of the tibia, etc. I need not repeat 
them. The clavicle, foot and hand, also suggest many details 
which I must pass by in silence. I shall only observe that in 
Abyssinia it is neither by his colour nor his hair that the true 
Negro is proved to be characterised, but merely by the rela- 
tively exaggerated prominence of the heel. But this sign, which 
has been asserted to be infallible, is wanting in certain Negro 



Anatomical Characters — Brain. 40 1 

races, not only in the Yoloffs, whose inferior member re- 
sembles our own, but also in the Bambaras, who. have a flat 
foot. 

VII. Characters drawn from the soft portions ; nervous 
system. After having examined the external forms of the 
body, and reviewed the skeleton, we must take the organic 
apparatus one by one, and study them in their turn. Un- 
fortunately the facts collected are here still more rare, when 
the observations should have been in larger numbers in order 
to give a definite value to the results. This studv, which 
has been scarcely commenced, has in reality only been 
brought, till the present time, to bear upon the two most 
distant terms of the human series : the European White and 
the African Negro. This alone will justify me in giving a 
very cursory exposition of the results obtained. 

The nervous system, of which Cuvier has said that it is 
the entire animal, is fortunately the part about which we 
possess, perhaps, the greatest number of comparative data. 
In the first place, we meet with a general fact noticed by 
Soemmering, and which is established beyond a doubt by 
the splendid preparations of Jacquard, exhibited in the 
galleries of the Paris Museum. Relatively to the White, 
the Negro presents a marked predominance of peripheral 
nervous expansions. The trunks are thicker, and the fibres 
more numerous, or perhaps merely easier to isolate, and to 
preserve on account of their volume alone. On the other 
hand, the cerebral centres, or at least the brain, appear to be 
inferior in development. 

In fact, in spite of what Blumenbach and Tiedmann have 
said on this subject, the brain of the Negro is, as a general 
rufe, less voluminous than that of the White. This fact is 
chiefly the result, it is true, of measurements of the capacity 
of crania. But determinations of the weight confirm this 
result. 

Seven Negro brains weighed by M. Broca gave a mean 
of 1316 grm. (46"42 oz.). Upon uniting the weights of 
European brains I find, however, a mean of only 1248 grm. 



402 The Human Species. 

(44*02 oz.), that is almost exactly the average of the White 
woman. The average weight of adult European brains 
is 1405 "88 grm. (49 '59 oz.). But in both races, individual 
oscillations are very .considerable. One of the skulls of the 
Black race examined by M. Broca weighed 1500 grm. 
(5291 oz.) ; Mascagni had one of 1587 grm. (55*94 oz.), and 
another of only 738 grm. (2 6 '03 oz.). 

The truth is that the European White, alone has been 
seriously examined from the point of view of the estimation 
of cerebral development by weight. The merit of having 
furnished the elements of this study belongs incontestably to 
Rud. Wagner. Uniting the far more important results of his 
own researches with those of Tiedmann, Sims, Parchappe, 
Lelut, Huschke and Bergmann, this savant drew up a table 
containing the weight of 964 brains, which had been directly 
obtained after removing the coverings ; he arranged them in 
order, commencing with the heaviest and finishing with the 
lightest. But he had not taken circumstances of sex, age, 
health, disease, etc., into consideration. The results which 
he obtained were, therefore, subject to alterations and correc- 
tions. M. Broca has accomplished this task. He took 347 
cases of healthy brains from Wagner's table, and carried out 
his investigations entirely upon them. 

A certain number of general propositions rise from all 
these researches, which may be formulated in the following 
manner : 

1. Under similar circumstances, in other respects, . the 
weight of the brain varies proportionately, or almost pro- 
portionately, to the height. According to Parchappe, the 
average weight of the brains of two groups of men with an 
average height of 174 metre (5'7 feet) and 1*63 metre 
(5'2 feet), was 1330 grm. (46*91 oz.), and 1254 grm. 
(44 '23 oz.). In this example the differential relation, 6 per 
cent., is exactly the same for the height of the body and the 
weight of the brain. This influence of stature enables us to 
interpret and comprehend the facts brought forward by 
Mr. Sandford Hunt. From the calculations of this anato- 



Anatomical Chai'actcrs — Brain. 403 

mist it would appear that the average weight of the brain 
of An 2flo- American soldiers exceeds the average weight of 
European brains as deduced from Wagner's tables, b} 7 from 
19 to 14 grms. (*67 to *49 oz.), or from 1'33 to *99 per cent. 
But the American anatomist did not take into consideration 
the difference in stature, which he nevertheless notices 
Now, from his calculations, it appears that American soldiers 
have, in this respect, the advantage over French and English 
soldiers to an extent of 3 per cent. The increase is, there- 
fore, only apparent, and, indeed, rather points to a relative 
diminution. 

2. Under similar circumstances in other respects, the 
female brain weighs a little less than the male. M. Broca 
has shown that this is the case at all periods of life. This 
difference appears to me, however, to arise almost exclusively 
from that of the stature of the body. Upon taking the 
woman as the term of comparison, and representing her 
height and the weight of her brain by 100, we find 109*43 
and 109*34 as the result for the man. The latter relation is 
that given by Parchappe. M. Broca found 10963 ; thus the 
relative heights are intermediary. 

3. The maximum average of the European is observed be- 
tween the thirtieth and fortieth years. It is then 1262 grms. 
(44*48 oz.) in the female, and 141036 grms. (49'74 oz.) in the 
male, or, in percentages, 100 and 11 1*7. The average for the 
entire period of maturity, between 30 and 50, is 140588 grms. 
(4959 oz.) in the male, and 1261*5 grms. (44*5 oz.) in the female. 

4. Beyond this maximum the weight of the brain appears 
to decrease continually, and in a more or less constant 
manner. Such, at least, is the result arising from calcula- 
tions bearing upon decennial intervals, which show a con- 
stantly decreasing average in the male, as well as in the 
female. There is probably some relation between this dimi- 
nution and that of the horizontal circumference of the 
cranium and the development of the frontal sinuses, observed 
long ago by Camper. 

5. In the European White, a brain, to be capable of per- 



404 The Human Species. 

forming its functions, must weigh at least 975 grms. (34*89 oz.) 
in the female, and 1133 grms. (39*96 oz.) in the male. These 
figures are the result of the discussion upon Wagner's table ; 
they are, however, too high, to judge from some of Hunt's 
calculations. In the Bosjesman and Australian, and pro- 
bably in many other races, the weight of the brain may 
descend as low as 907 grms. (31*99 oz.), without the in- 
tellectual faculties being destroyed. 

Let us add that this organ may, moreover, fall much below 
this weight without causing cessation of life, or even the 
absolute disappearance of the intelligence, as in some micro- 
cephali. The smallest brains which have ever been weighed 
are those of Teite, quoted by Wagner, 300 grms. (10*58 oz.), and 
that of the woman who formed the subject of a memoir by 
Gore, 283*75 grms. (10 oz.). These brains are appreciably 
inferior in weight to those of the gorilla and orang. 

6. In the European White, the maximum weight of a 
healthy brain perhaps reaches 2231 grms. (78*69 oz.) (Crom- 
well), or even 2238 grms. (78*94 oz.) (Byron). But there is 
not the certainty we should wish for about these figures. 
The weight of Cuvier's brain is, however, attested by the 
post-mortem examination conducted by Professor Berard ; 
it is 1829*96 grms. (68*43 oz.). Mr. Sandford Hunt quotes 
another at 1842 grms. (65*32 oz.). We may regard these 
figures as indicating the superior limit which can be attained 
by the brain in the White race without the general health 
appearing to be affected. 

The figures obtained by Mr. Hunt from the calculations 
given by several authors for 278 brains of European Whites 
agree sufficiently well with the above. The average of the 
former is 1403 grms. (49*55 oz.). The maximum is that 
quoted above, 1842 grms. (64*97 oz.) ; the minimum falls to 
963 grms. (33*97 oz.), which is very remarkable from its 
lightness, being below that which, in Wagner's table, seems 
to involve idiotcy. The results obtained by Mr. Hunt upon 
his Black and White fellow-countrymen, present, as regards 
comparison, a special interest. The brains of twenty-four 



Anatomical Characters — Weight of Brain. 405 

American White soldiers gave an average weight of 1424 grms. 
(43*2 oz.) in round numbers. The maximum was 1814 grms. 
(63*98 oz.); the minimum 1247 grms. (43*98 oz.). The 
brains of 141 Negroes gave an average of 1331 grms. 
(46'98 oz.), which is greater than the results of investigations 
made in Europe. The maximum was 1507 grms. (53*15 oz.); 
the minimum 1013 grms. (35*73 oz.). 

The observations of Mr. Hunt upon 240 crosses between 
the White and the Negro lead to interesting conclusions 
The following is the result : 

grms. oz. 

In crosses having f white blood, the average weight of the brain is 1390 49*03 

„ „ 5 „ „ „ 1334 47-0o 

„ „ \ „ „ „ 1319 46*52 

n £ » >■ >■ 1^08 46-13 

„ i „ „ „ 1280 44-79 



We see that the weight of the brain diminishes propor- 
tionately with the white blood. But it is especially curious 
to observe, that in crosses still possessing a tolerably strong 
proportion of superior blood, the weight falls below that of 
pure Negroes. The average was taken from twenty-two 
individuals, and the difference, 86 grms. (3'03 oz.), is too 
great not to be taken into serious consideration. We should 
say that this is a phenomenon identical with that presented 
by colouring. Certain crosses, in whom the black blood 
predominates, are of a darker hue than the original Negro 
race. 

To exhaust the little that we know of exotic races, I need 
only to add that in a Hottentot examined by Wyman the 
brain weighed 1417 grms. (49 '96 oz.). This weight, which 
is greater than that of the average of Europeans, affords one 
more proof of that intercrossing to which I have so often 
called attention, and which has, in this case, perhaps a 
deeper meaning than elsewhere. 

Since the publication of Gratiolet's admirable work Sur 
les plis cerebraux de llwmme et des primates, the study of 
cerebral convolutions has assumed considerable importance 



406 The Hitman Species. 

in anthropology, although it has been somewhat exaggerated. 
The investigations of MM. Dareste and Baillarger show that 
the development of these convolutions depends to a great 
extent upon that of the encephalon itself, and the influence 
exercised by stature at once explains certain facts which had 
formerly been the cause of some embarrassment. Under 
conditions similar in other respects, the brain of small races 
would be less convoluted than that of large races. 
. But, apart from this influence, it appears as a well estab- 
lished fact, that in savage races the number and complica- 
tion of the cerebral convolutions are less than in intelligent 
and civilized races. Intellectual culture would seem then to 
exercise an entirely special action upon the cortical layers, 
and to favour their development. 

The known extremes at the present day of the character 
in question are offered by the Hottentot Venus and Cuvier. 
The brain of the former is the simplest that has ever been 
observed in an intelligent person. It recalls that of an 
idiot. The brain of Cuvier, which unfortunately has neither 
been modelled nor drawn, was, as we are told by the 
eminent anatomists who saw it, distinguished by the extra- 
ordinary complication of the convolutions and the depth of 
the sulci. Moreover, each convolution was, as it were, 
doubled by a kind of rounded ridge. In spite of these 
exceptional cases, no one would surely dream of placing the 
great naturalist in any other species than that to which his 
contemporaries belong. Neither can we consider the simpli- 
fication of the brain of the Hottentot Venus as a specific 
character. 

When comparative observations have sufficiently multi- 
plied, we shall doubtless find more or less striking characters 
in the relative proportions of certain regions of the brain. 
For example, if Dr. Nott's observation be correct, the cere- 
bellum in the Red- Skin extends beyond the cerebrum, while 
the latter, it is well known, extends beyond the cerebellum 
in the White and Negro. The same organ is longer in the 
Negro and broader in the AVhite. 



Anatomical Characters — Vessels, Glands. 407 

Naturalists, travellers, and anatomists announced long ago 
that the brain of the Negro is distinguished from that of the 
White by its blackish colour. An experiment performed at 
Paris under the superintendence of M. Kayer, upon which 
I have already made some passing remarks, confirms the 
general fact. I have already observed how M. Gubler, by 
whom it was prepared, wished to discover if there were no 
mean terms. He examined the colouring of brains obtained 
from individuals, all belonging to the White race, but whose 
complexions were differently coloured, and proved that the 
internal colouring was in direct relation with the external. 
In fair individuals with blue eyes and a pink and white 
skin, the pigment seemed to be entirely wanting. In indi- 
viduals with a brown skin, black hair, and a very dark iris, 
" not only the brain enveloped by its membranes assumes a 
deeper shade, but a layer of black matter, in every way 
comparable to that of the Negro, covers the protuberance, 
the pineal gland, and some other points of the nervous 
centres." 

Thus, internally, as well as externally, the colouring of 
tissues presents that graduated series to which I have so 
often called attention. This removes, therefore, the abso- 
lute nature which had been attributed to a peculiarity 
which had so often been insisted upon as separating the 
Negro from the White, to the extent of making him a dis- 
tinct species. 

VIII. Vascular and respiratory systems. Considered as 
a whole, the vascular system of the Black and that of the 
White present facts somewhat similar to those which we 
have observed in the nervous system. According to Pruner 
Bey, the venous s} T stem predominates visibly over the 
arterial in the Black ; and here, again, the admirable pre- 
parations of Jacquard are a material proof of the correctness 
of the observations of the savant I have just quoted. This 
predominance seems to extend to the right cavities of the 
heart. 

The lungs are less developed in the Negro than in the 



408 The Human Species. 

White. M. Primer Bey has observed cases in which they 
seem to be -pressed upwards by the abdominal viscera. The 
characters peculiar to the blood of the Negro, which were 
noticed in a preceding chapter, will, perhaps, at some future 
time, be connected with this group of anatomical conditions. 
We have already seen that the cutaneous glandular system 
is more developed in the Negro than in the White. The in- 
vestigations of M. Primer Bey demonstrate that the same fact 
reappears throughout the whole length of the intestinal canal, 
the surface of which is everywhere marked by the prominence 
of secreting organs, especially in the stomach and colon. The 
large glands which are connected with the alimentary canal 
are also remarkably developed, particularly the liver. The 
case is also the same with the supra-renal capsules. All these 
organs are in a constant state of venous hyperemia. Finally, 
these intestinal mucous membranes are very thick, and pre- 
sent the appearance of adipose tissue. Facts of a similar 
nature will perhaps be observed in the greater number of 
intertropical races. We already know that in the Javanese 
the liver is as fully developed as in the Negro. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS. 



I. The special history of human races presents a consider- 
able number of interesting physiological facts which are 
sufficiently different and well marked, to serve as dis- 
tinctive characters. We find in the tropics peoples re- 
markably abstemious, and living entirely upon vegetables, 
without their organism being injuriously affected ; in the 
polar regions there are others who eat fat in quantities 
which would be rejected by our digestive organs ; there are 
also some slight variations between the respiration, circula- 
tion, animal temperature, secretions, etc. of the White man 
and the Negro ; the muscular energy and the manner in 
which it is employed, sometimes vary considerably in different 
races ; general sensibility, and consequently aptitude for feel- 
ing pain, are very unequally developed. The same surgical 
operation will not cause as much pain to a Chinese as to a 
European. 

But the greater number of these traits arise from pecu- 
liarities which do not belong to general considerations. Many 
are the result of anterior facts, and are connected with con- 
ditions of life, habit, etc., sometimes even with beliefs and in- 
stitutions. Even if we confined ourselves to a mere sketch, 
we should have to enter into details incompatible with the 
plan of this book, if we wished to discuss all these questions. 
I shall, therefore, here confine myself to pointing out some 
general phenomena to justify the above statements. 

II. I will, in the first place, say a few words upon certain 
facts and ideas which have often been the occasion of ani- 



4-io 



The Human Species. 



mated discussion. I mean the degree of relation admissible 
between the development of the intelligence and that of the 
brain. This question may seem at first sight to belong al- 
most entirely to the study of the individual. But, from the 
manner in which it has been applied to the appreciation of 
the intellectual power of races, it has acquired a real interest 
in general anthropology. 

On no occasion, perhaps, has this question been treated 
more thoroughly and by more competent judges than by the 
Paris Anthropological Society in the great discussion of 1861. 
Many speakers took part in it, but the two principal cham- 
pions of the rival doctrines were Gratiolet on the one hand, 
and M. Broca upon the other. Some of their statements, if 
taken literally, would lead us to imagine that an impassable 
gulf lay between them. If, however, we read them again, 
after the excitement of the moment has passed away, we 
find, from the summaries which they themselves have drawn 
up, that such is by no means the case, and that, far from their 
being divided in principle, it would not be difficult to effect 
an understanding between them. 

Gratiolet considers "that power which lies in the brain, 
and which can only be estimated by its manifestations," far 
more important than weight or form. But he is far from 
absolutely refusing to recognise the influence of cerebral 
development ; he allows that below a certain limit the 
human brain no longer performs its functions in a normal 
manner. This limit he places at 900 grms. (31 "74 oz.) in 
the female. 

M. Broca raises the number to 907 grms. (31*99 oz.), and 
adds that, in the male, the limit is 1049 grms. (37 oz.). He 
attributes great importance to the volume of the brain, esti- 
mated either directly, by weight, or by the capacity of the 
cranium. But on several occasions he protests most strongly 
against the intention w T hich might be imputed to him, of 
wishing to establish an absolute relation between the de- 
velopment of the intelligence and the volume or weight of 
the brain. "No well-instructed man," he says, "would ever 



Functions and Weight of the Brain. 4 1 1 

think of estimating the intelligence by measuring the en- 
cephalon." 

The two following tables, borrowed from M. Broca, will 
suffice to show the truth of these words : 



AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN MAX. 









grms. 


oz. 




From 1 to 10 years 


• 


985-15 


(34-75). 




From 11 to 20 years 


, , 


. . 1465-27 


(51-68). 




From 21 to 30 years 


, , 


. 1341-53 


(47-67). 




From 31 to 40 years 


, , 


. . 1410-36 


(49-74). 




From 41 to 50 years 


, . 


. 1391-41 


(49-07). 




From 51 to 60 years 


, , 


. . 1341-19 


(47-30). 




From 61 and up war 


Is 


. 1326-21 


(46-77). 




WEIGHT OF THI 


; BRAIN 


IN SOME EMINENT MEN. 










■WEIGHT OP BRAIN 




NAME. 


AGE. 


PROFESSION. 


grms. oz. 


1. 


Order . 


63 years . 


. naturalist . . 


1829-96 (64-54) 


2. 


Byron . . . 


36 years . 


. poet . . . 


1807-00 (63-73) 


27. 


Lejeune-Dirichlet . 


54 years . 


. mathematician . 


1520-00 (53-61) 


34. 


Fuchs . . . 


52 years . 


. pathologist 


1499-00 (52-87) 


43. 


Gauss 


78 years . 


. mathematician . 


1492-00 (52-62) 


52. 


Dupuytren . . . 


58 years . 


. surgeon . . 


1436-00 (50-65) 


92. 


Hermann 


51 years . 


. philologist. 


1358-00 (47-90) 


158. 


Haussmann . . 


77 years : 


. mineralogist . . 


1220-00 (43-24) 



The numbers placed before the name of each person indi- 
cate the position held by the latter in the list of 347 cases of 
healthy brains taken by M. Broca from the general table of 
Wagner. We find that the celebrated mineralogist Hauss- 
mann stands almost half way down the list, and that he is 
separated from his eminent colleagues by a considerable 
number of unknown examples. Again, we observe that the 
weight of his brain is 100 grms. (3*5 oz.) below the average 
weight of men of his age. On the other hand, in all the 
other cases the weight of the brain was above the average. 

The exception presented by Haussmann, the manner in 
which all these eminent men are scattered among their 
ordinary brethren, should be sufficient to make us reject all 
exasperated connection of the magnitude of the intelligence 
and that of the brain. This result is still more striking if we 
group these same numbers as Gratiolct has done, calculating 



41-2 The Human Species. 

the mean of the contiguous weights. We thus obtain for 
the first group (Cuvier, Byron) an average weight of 
1818 48 grms. (64*14 oz.) ; for the second (Dirichlet, Fuchs, 
Gauss, Dupuytren) 1487 grms. (52*44 oz.) ; for the third 
(Hermann, Haussmann) 1292 grms. (45'57 oz.). The latter 
is below the average weight of German brains, that is to say, 
of the fellow-countrymen of the two eminent men in 
question. 

This remark is important. In the question under discus- 
sion it will not do to compare separately the celebrities who 
figure in Wagner's table ; we must connect them with the 
rest of mankind, with diseased, as well as with other brains. 
To act otherwise would be to give rise to the idea that we 
had wished to evade a difficulty by neglecting to turn the 
attention to the fact that, immediately after the brain of 
Byron, and long before that of Gauss, stands the brain of a 
madman. Are, then, genius and madness in such close re- 
lationship ? Are the volume, the weight, and the peculiar 
characters of Cuvier's brain indeed due to a hypertrophy 
which came to a standstill just at the right moment, as 
Gratiolet thought ? 

III. However abridged and curtailed this statement of 
facts may be, it seems to me sufficient to justify us in 
drawing conclusions equally applicable to individuals and to 
races. . 

We shall certainly not be accused of an exaggerated 
immaterialism if we estimate the action of the brain as we 
estimate the action of a muscle. Now experience and obser- 
vation daily testify that in the latter volume and form are 
not everything. Functional energy often more than com- 
pensates for what is wanting with respect to mass. Many 
other organic systems would furnish similar facts, well-known 
to all doctors and all physiologists. To assert that the case 
is different with the brain would be, even in the absence of 
all direct observation, a purely gratuitous hypothesis, and, in 
the presence of Wagner's tables, a contradiction of evidence. 
With his small brain, Haussman, the correspondent of the 



Physiological Characters — Gestation. 413 

French Institute, has evidently surpassed, in the matter of 
intelligence, almost all his large-headed contemporaries. 

But, on the other hand, beyond a certain stage of decrease, 
the muscular apparatus becomes incapable of effort. We 
can readily understand that it should be so with the brain 
also. It is, therefore, most natural to find that, when it has 
fallen below a certain volume and weight, it gradually passes 
from weakness to impotence. Even M. de Bonald could not 
consider it strange, that an intelligence when provided only 
with imperfect 07* almost useless organs, should only manifest 
itself in an incomplete manner. 

Thus, irrespective of all dogmatic or philosophic ideas, we 
are led to the conclusion that there is a certain relation between 
the development of the intelligence and the volume and weight 
of the brain. But, at the same time, we must allow that the 
material element, that which is appreciable to our senses, is 
not the only one which we must take into account, for 
behind it lies hidden am unknown quantity, an x, at present 
undetermined and only recognised by its effects. 

IV. Thus from this fact alone it follows that we cannot 
act with too much caution in forming an estimate of a race 
from the dimensions of its cranium, and the relative develop- 
ment of the bones of which it is composed. Gratiolet pro- 
posed to distinguish frontal, "parietal, and occipital races, 
characterised by the predominance of the anterior, medial 
and posterior regions of the cranium and the brain. If we 
accept the word character as it is understood by naturalists, 
we shall have no objection to make to these denominations. 
But to go beyond that, to attribute to one or other of these 
races any kind of superiority by virtue of any one or other of 
these characters, would be mere hypothesis. In fact, the 
Basques, with their occipital dolichocephaly, are in no way 
inferior to the frontal dolichocephali of Paris. 

V. In those phenomena, amongst which, a priori, we 
should be tempted to look for ethnological characters, we 
must give the first place to organic evolution at different 
periods of life. Now, the examination of facts establishes 



414 Tfie Human Species. 

the important fact, that, in this respect, all human races 
present a remarkable uniformity. When some slight dif- 
ferences are manifested, they show such coincidence with the 
action of the conditions of life, that it is impossible not to 
recognise the relation of cause and effect, and this fact alone 
produced a most significant intercrossing between peoples 
evidently identical in origin. Thus, the whole mass of 
physiological phenomena, considered as characters, add one 
more proof in favour of the monogenistic theory. A few 
examples will suffice to justify these statements. 

VI. Let us first prove that the duration of gestation is the 
same in all human races. The importance of this fact will 
be readily understood. 

It is generally known that the intra-uterine life presents 
a notable disparity in the same zoological group, and some- 
times in nearly related species. If men constituted a genus, 
it would be very strange if they were exempt from this law, 
and that no differences should have been observed, as they 
certainly would have been, between groups. ' These differ- 
ences may indeed exist to a certain extent without rising to 
a specific character, for they are observed in our races of 
domestic animals, where they appear to bear some relation to 
stature. Gestation lasts sixty-three days in large races of 
dogs; from fifty-nine to sixty-three in the small. This is the 
period observed in menageries for the gestation of the jackal, 
the wild stock of the dog. But it rises to something over a 
hundred days for the wolf, however nearly related it may 
morphologically be to some canine races. 

The period of lactation is very variable as to duration in 
different human peoples. Without even going beyond France, 
we should have no difficulty in giving examples of such dif- 
ferences, in which the maximum would almost double the 
minimum. It is evident that in this case manners, customs, 
etc., play the most important part, and that the question of 
races scarcely enters at all. With the Negroes, lactation 
lasts, as a general rule, for two years, and the period is quite 
as long in all oriental populations. It lasts for five years in 



Physiological Characters — Puberty. 415 

China. But as M. Morache tells us, the Chinese mother 
only prolongs it in order to retard the recommencement of 
the monthly courses, which, in this fertile race, is rapidly 
followed by a fresh pregnancy. There is nothing surprising 
in the possibility of such prolonged lactation. It is generally 
known that the secretion of the milk is supported by its 
use. Amongst ourselves, according to the evidence of 
Desormeaux, one nurse will sometimes suckle three or four 
infants in succession. 

VII. The period of suckling is followed by that of child- 
hood, a condition very distinct from those by which it will in 
turn be followed. The human being is as yet neither male 
nor female. The first manifestation of sex is one of the 
most important epochs of life, and it is interesting to ob- 
serve that the arrival of this epoch varies within very wide 
limits. 

The female, on account of the phenomena to which she is 
then subject, and which admit the possibility of direct obser- 
vation, is, in this case, specially adapted for the researches of 
the anthropologist. Now, taking extreme numbers, obtained 
by different observers upon several peoples of the globe, we 
find that the minimum age at which the female becomes 
pubescent is that of eight to nine } 7 ears, as observed by 
Oldfield in the Eboes, and the maximum age, that of eighteen 
to twenty years, noticed by Rush, among some tribes of 
North America. Setting aside these exceptional numbers, 
we find as general extremes, ten to eleven years on the one 
hand, and fifteen to sixteen on the other. 

The variation we see is great, and we are naturally led to 
ask if it is at all constant in human groups. The numerous 
statistics which have been collected upon this subject, seem 
to justify us in giving an absolutely negative reply to the 
question. 

And, in the first place, there is no doubt that here condi- 
tions of life play an important part. From the researches of 
M. Brierre de Boismont, it appears that, in the same locality, 
the higher or lower social position, and the consequent 



4i 6 The Human Species, 

difference in mode of living, produces an average variation of 
fourteen months. In Paris, the women of the lower classes 
are pubescent at fourteen years and ten months, those of the 
middle class at fourteen years and five months ; those of the 
upper class at thirteen years and eight months. 

The mode of life is sufficient to produce differences of a 
very marked character in the age at which the female 
becomes capable of conception. At Strasbourg, as at Paris, 
the young country girl is behind those of the town. The 
difference is about 8 \ months for Strasbourg and 4 J for 
Paris. In Alsace, as upon the banks of the Seine, the hard- 
ships of field labour render the functions of the individual 
life more active at the expense of those connected with the 
sexual. 

Again, we cannot doubt the influence which is certainly 
exercised by temperature. M. Raciborski, adding to his own 
investigations those of a large number of other medical men, 
has even thought himself justified in drawing the conclusion 
that the age of puberty is advanced or retarded by a little 
more than a month for each degree of latitude, according as 
we calculate from the equator or the pole, with the condition 
only that the temperature increases or decreases with the 
latitude. 

The action of the three causes I have just mentioned are 
most evident. But, as we have already remarked, food, 
temperature, and even mode of life do not alone form condi- 
tions of life. Many other influences besides these act upon 
the organism. The greater or less amount of light, and of 
actinic rays, cannot be without effect. 

All these influences explain how it is that the age of 
puberty varies with the habits in the same race ; how women, 
belonging to the same branch of the white aryan race, may 
present the extremes which I have alluded to above. From 
among the latter the Swedes and Norwegians are pubescent 
at from 15 to 16 years ; the English at from 13 to 14 ; but 
the English Creoles of Jamaica at from 10 to 11 years. At 
Antigoa, Negro and White women, transported into the same 



Physiological Characters — Puberty. 4 1 7 

common conditions of life, no longer present any difference 
in this respect. "We see also how it is that women belonging 
to the most different populations and races, Swedes, Dacotas, 
Corfiotas, Potowatomies, English, and Chinese, become 
pubescent at the same age. 

Does then race stand for absolutely nothing in the physio- 
logical phenomena under consideration % 

Some facts seem to authorize us in holding a contrary 
opinion. The Esquimaux women of Labrador are as forward 
in this respect as the Negresses of our colonies. In the 
Potowatomies (Algonquins) and the Dacotas (Sioux) there 
seems to be an average difference of a year in the appear- 
ance of the first phenomena of puberty. Several other 
observations of the same nature might be quoted from 
various travellers. There is, however, nothing to astonish 
us in these facts. They are only the reproduction in the 
human species, of what we observe every day in our 
domestic animals and cultivated plants, all of which have 
forward and backward races. 

M. Lagneau studied this question with particular reference 
to France. He came to the conclusion that the conditions of 
life are not sufficient to explain the differences which were 
proved by his investigations, and that the age of puberty, 
depending upon the rapidity of the development of the 
organism, varies slightly with the race. This opinion, which 
it seems as if we might accept within the limits he himself 
has prescribed, M. Lagneau states with great reserve. 

These limits are very narrow. They vary from fourteen 
years and five days to sixteen years, one month and twenty- 
four days. The minimum age is presented by the female 
population of Toulon : the maximum, by that of Strasbourg. 
But between these two localities there is a difference of about 
three degrees of latitude and five degrees in the mean tem- 
perature. Toulon enjoys a very equable climate ; the 
climate of Strasbourg is, on the contrary, excessive ; at 
Toulon the climate is sunny, while at Strasbourg there is 
much cloud ; the Toulonaise lives in the open air, and 



41 8 The Human Species. 

breathes the stimulating air of the sea, the Strasbourgeoise 
lives in the house and breathes an air which is generally 
damp; the former drinks wine, the latter beer. All these 
conditions, stimulating on the one hand, and debilitating on 
the other, must exercise some influence. After taking all 
these circumstances into consideration, we see that, in France 
at least, the influence of race scarcely exceeds that exercised 
by difference in social position upon the population of the 
same town. 

The researches of M. Lagneau also have reference to the 
time when, both in the male and in the female, the repro- 
ductive faculties become extinct. The evidences are here 
neither so numerous nor so definite. Nevertheless, from the 
little that we know on this point, the result would seem to 
point to conclusions similar to those which we have men- 
tioned above. 

VIII. We might easily be led to think that forwardness 
or backwardness in organic development, defined by the 
age at which puberty appears, should involve a proportion- 
ately longer or shorter duration of human life. Precise 
observations are far from being so numerous and complete as 
to solve this important problem with any degree of certainty. 
The greater number of facts with which we are acquainted, 
scarcely seem, however, to support the theoretical conclusions 
admitted by some anthropologists, by Virey among others. 
Everything seems to indicate, on the contrary, that the limits 
of life are almost the same for all human races, provided that 
they are placed in conditions of existence, which are relatively 
equally favourable. It is, in fact, evident that these condi- 
tions exercise a most marked influence upon the duration of 
organisms. When life is in question we do not deny the 
action of the conditions of life. 

Here, again, appears the multiple nature of these con- 
ditions. We fiud from the statistical researches of Boudin 
that in sixty-seven years, from 1776 to 1843, the average life 
of man in France was increased by eleven years. It has, 
therefore, gained sixty days a year ; it has attained almost 



Physiological Characters — Duration of Life. 419 

the highest limit gained in this respect by European peoples 
(34 '45 years). The temperature has not changed, nor has 
there been any amelioration in the climate. But the general 
conditions of existence are modified and the result appears in 
these very significant figures. 

The average life of European Whites, the only peoples con- 
cerning whom we possess sufficiently exact data, oscillates 
between 28*18 years (Prussia) and 39 8 years (Schlesivig- 
Holstein, Lauenbourg) ; a difference of more than eleven 
years. 

The tables of average duration of life, collected by Boudin 
and borrowed from Hain and Bernouilli, prove beyond a 
doubt that, amongst our European peoples at least, mean 
duration of life depends to a very slight extent, if at all, 
upon the race. The German states present an average of 
from 2818 years {Prussia) to 36'8 years (Hanover). 

Temperature, at least when considered alone, seems to 
exercise hardly any notable influence, Naples standing almost 
midway between the preceding numbers (31 6 5 years). 

These facts, obtained from among the best known peoples, 
justify us in thinking that, other things being equal, the 
duration of life must be almost universally the same. It 
will be understood that all strict comparison is here out of 
the question, for want of statistical documents, properly so 
called. Still, a number of facts obtained by various travellers 
amongst peoples of very different races, and, in some cases, 
placed under opposite conditions of existence, seem to justify 
this conclusion. 

All travellers, who have been in a position to judge for 
themselves, have spoken of the Lapps as generally living to a 
great age ; men of from seventy to ninety years are not rare 
amongst them. 

Upon the evidence of travellers of the highest reputation, 
it seems that the greater number of American peoples also 
reach an advanced age, and often without bearing any 
external traces of decrepitude. However rude and often 
precarious their mode of life may be, the representatives of 



420 The Human Species. 

these races are in no way inferior to Europeans, as regards 
duration of life. 

Is it different in the case of the Negro, as Yirey has 
thought \ Everything seems to prove the contrary. Even 
when removed from his native land, and placed under condi- 
tions which we have seen to be very unfavourable to him, 
the Negro lives as long as the European. This result is 
obtained from the register of slaves consulted by Prichard 
in the West Indies. This anthropologist has shown, by 
examples drawn from different sources, that centenarians 
were far from rare among the individuals of this race 
scattered through different parts of America. From the 
documents which he quotes, it even appears that in the 
States of New Jersey, an official census gave a little more 
than one Negro centenarian in the thousand, but only one 
White centenarian in one hundred and fifty thousand. 

Nevertheless Adanson, Winterbottom, and others, state' 
that the Negro of the Senegal and Guinea age early in life, 
and the latter adds that individuals of this race rarely reach 
an advanced age. Dr. Oldfield, in the great English Expe- 
dition up the Niger, makes the same remark with reference 
to the part of the country which skirts the river Nunn, a 
marshy region, covered with a luxuriant vegetation supported 
by inundations. But higher up the river, in the country 
discovered by Nyffe, he met, on the contrary, with a large 
number of old men who must have been upwards of eighty, 
and visited an old chief, who, he says, was 115 years old. 

There is nothing contradictory in these facts. They merely 
show us that the Negro is subject to the law common to all 
other men. It is in vain that he has conformed to conditions 
of existence, which the White has so much difficulty in living 
under; when these conditions are aggravated and exceed a 
certain limit, he suffers, and his life is shortened. The native 
of the banks of the Nunn is placed, as a JS r egro, under condi- 
tions of existence similar to those to which, in former times, 
the Whites of the Dombe in France were subject, and in both 
cases the result was the same. 



Physiological Characters — Duration of Life. 421 

But beyond these exceptional localities, when the condi- 
tions are equally favourable, the duration of life seems to be 
the same in the two typical races which are the most widely 
separated of all in the human species. In any case the same 
extreme limits have been proved for the Negro and the 
White. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS. 

I. The pathological, as well as the physiological, condition 
in the various human groups presents peculiarities which 
may be considered as characters. These characters are some- 
times even more clearly defined, because morbid phenomena 
are often very strongly marked. This question is one of 
great interest ; but to treat it in the detail which it deserves, 
would require a greater amount of both time and space than 
can be given it here. I shall, therefore, confine myself to 
recalling a few general facts already known, and to quoting 
a few examples which will serve to fix the nature and 
meaning of pathological facts regarded from an anthropo- 
logical point of view. 

II. We have, as yet, in treating of the conditions of life, 
scarcely considered more than their modifying action, while 
it is universally known that they also exert a disturbing 
action. Actions of this kind are in most cases the funda- 
mental cause of disease. 

We are here, therefore, again led to considerations similar 
to those with which we have so often been brought in 
contact. We will therefore recall in a few words the general 
results of the preceding investigations. 

1. The fundamental nature of all men is the same. 

2. The formation of distinct races has been the sole cause 
of modifications in this fundamental nature of all human 
groups. 

3. The several characters and special aptitudes which 
constitute a kind of acquired nature, have, in each of the 



Pathological Characters — Epidemics. 423 

groups, been developed under the influence of the conditions 
of life. 

It is clear that when the disturbing action, the cause of 
disease, works upon the fundamental element, the same 
causes will produce fundamentally similar effects ; when, on 
the contrary, this action is exercised upon the acquired and 
special element of each race, the same causes will produce 
different effects. In other words, unity of species and 
multiplicity of races involve the liability of all men to 
common diseases, which will, at most, vary as to accessory 
phenomena ; but also allow the existence of diseases more 
or less peculiar to certain human groups. 

Nevertheless, the great majority of diseases will be common 
to all men, and merely present modifications in the different 
groups. For example, one race may be either more liable to 
or more unsusceptible to certain affections than another. 

Let me observe in passing, and without insisting upon 
facts known to all agriculturists and to all breeders, that 
similar phenomena are presented by the races of vegetable 
species which have long been under cultivation, and of 
animal species for centuries subject to domestication. 

The propositions which I have just brought forward are 
the natural result of the facts to which I have ahead} 7 drawn 
attention, and of the principles admitted at the commence- 
ment of this book. They are in remarkable accordance with 
the results of experiment and observation. 

III. It becomes more and more evident, from investiga- 
tions which are daily increasing in number, that all human 
races are subject to almost every disease. 

The Negro and the White have often been contrasted 
from a pathological point of view, and it has been stated 
that localities in which the latter succumb, are not unhealthy 
to the former. It is said that marsh fevers, dysentery, and 
abscess upon the liver, so feared by Europeans, do not attack 
the inhabitants of the coasts of Guinea, and the banks of the 
Senegal and the Gaboon. These are exaggerated statements 
which were reduced to their true value by the observations 
19 



424 The Human Species. 

of Winterbottom, Old field, and others. More recent works 
confirm these earlier observations in every respect : " The 
Negro race," says M. Berchon, " suffers from dysentery and 
abscess on the liver like the white race. . . . The deadly 
fevers, which, with the two diseases just mentioned, form the 
pathognomonical trilogy of Senegalese pathology, will first 
attack Europeans ; but the Blacks are by no means exempt 
from them." 

The last remark is confirmed in a very remarkable manner 
by the numbers given in the accompanying table, which I 
borrow from M. Boudin. He gives a summary of the English 
official documents upon the annual mortality in the thousand 
at Sierra Leone from 1829 to 1836. 

DISEASES. WHITES. NEGEOES. 

Marsh fevers ........ 410-2 2-4 

. Eruptive fevers 0-0 6*9 

Diseases of the lungs 4-9 6-3 

Diseases of .the liver 6*0 1-1 

Gastro-intestinal diseases . . . . . 41*3 5*3 

Diseases of the nervous system . . . . 4*3 1*6 

Dropsy . 4-3 0-3 

Other diseases . - 12-0 6*2 

Sierra Leone is one of the most unhealthy stations for the 
White race, while for the Negro it is, on the contrary, one of 
the places where the rate of mortality is lowest. The relation 
which shows this difference is indeed most alarming (483 
to 301). Yet the nosological table is the same for the two 
races, for although in this statement there are no eruptive 
fevers given for the English soldiers, we know very well that 
the White races are by. no means exempt from them. 

Other tables drawn up by M. Boudin, with the assistance 
of the same documents, bring into still stronger relief the 
fundamental fact now under consideration. In one of them 
we learn the comparative mortality of the Negro and the 
Black from marsh fevers in seventeen localities, taken from 
nearly all parts of the globe,' from Gibraltar to Guiana, and 
from Jamaica to Ceylon. The number of deaths is always 
considerably greater for the Europeans, but they almost 



Pathological Characters — Epidemics. 425 

always rise or fall simultaneously, and in the same place, 
for the two races, when both are immigrants. 

It is almost unnecessary to repeat the remark that all 
the great epidemics are common to all races, and that the 
yellow fever attacks indifferently the White, Yellow, or the 
Black race. The yellow fever is so far from being special in 
character, and is so subordinate to the action of the condi- 
tions of life, that Mexicans from colder regions are as liable 
to it as even Europeans ; and in the islands of the Gulf of 
Mexico the Creole Whites easily withstand those influences 
which are so fatal to immigrants. 

IV. Eruptive maladies, and particularly small-pox, seem 
to have been unknown in America till they were brought by 
Europeans to that continent. On the other hand, the latter 
gave them some of the most serious forms of syphilis, which 
characterised the terrible epidemic of the fifteenth century. 
In this fatal exchange, the character of the two diseases was 
remarkably aggravated in passing from one race to the other, 
so that populations attacked by them for the first time would 
suffer much more than those who had communicated the 
disease. In America, whole populations have disappeared 
from eruptive fevers, sometimes with terrible rapidity. The 
celebrated tribe of the Mandans, when blockaded by the 
Sioux, and unable to escape this scourge, was entirely anni- 
hilated in a few days, with the exception of a few absent 
individuals. Catlin, to whom we are indebted for these 
details, and who obtained them from Whites protected by 
vaccination, adds that those who were attacked by small 
pox, succumbed in two or three hours. On the other hand, 
we know what were the consequences in Europe of that 
infection, which, even at the present day, too often poisons 
the very sources of life. 

Thus, a human race may be unacquainted with one, or 
several diseases, or with certain morbid forms, though at the 
same time but too apt to contract them. Once attacked, it 
may even develop this disease, which is new to it, in a more 
violent form than any hitherto known. 



426 The Hitman Species. 

V. There are diseases which, though common to all human 
races, attack some in preference to others. The latter then 
enjoy, compared with the former, a relative immunity. This 
would necessarily result from what we have already seen. 
Let us add that these differences in the action of the same 
pathogenistic cause, are evident in cases of epidemics. When 
Guadaloupe was attacked by cholera in 1865 and 1866, the 
rate of mortality was 2*70 per cent, for Chinese, 3*86 for 
Hindoos, 431 for Whites, 632 for Mulattoes, and 944 for 
Negroes. These figures are the more interesting from the 
fact that all these races were immigrants. 

It seems sometimes, as if two causes of death maintained 
a kind of equilibrium and reciprocity between two races. I 
have already, when speaking of acclimatisation, pointed out 
the contrast which is presented by the Negro and the White 
from this point of view. Of all human races the White is 
most sensitive to marsh fevers, and the Black least so. On 
the other hand, the Negro race suffers more than any other 
from phthisis, while the White race may, in this respect, be 
almost classed with other groups, with the Malays for example. 

But, again, there are immunities more complete than that 
of the Negro, from marsh affections; and, further, these 
immunities may be lost, either in the case of an entire group 
of population, or in that of isolated individuals. I will here 
borrow two striking examples from M. Boudin's work. 

Elephantiasis, that affection by which certain parts of the 
body are sometimes deformed in so strange a manner, is 
found in the Indies and at Barbadoes. In the latter island, 
Negroes alone were attacked by this hideous disease till the 
year 1*70-1:. One White was, in that year, affected by it for 
the first time. But the disease made way, and in 1760 it 
had extended to the Creole population, Whites of European 
origin have, as yet, escaped. 

The elephantiasis of India is found in Ceylon. There, 
again, it only attacks natives, Creoles and individuals of 
mixed blood. Hindoos and Europeans, strangers in the 
island, are exempt from it. Scott, quoted by M. Boudin, 



\ 



Pathological Characters — Relative Immunity. 427 

states that only one case of this disease had been observed 
in a European White. But this individual bad inhabited 
the island for thirty years ; acclimatisation had been earned 
so far in his case as to cause him to lose his ethnological 
immunity. 

On the other hand, we have seen, in speaking of acclimati- 
sation, that Creoles easily live and prosper in certain localities 
which are most dangerous to immigrants. They have, 
therefore, acquired, at the price of sacrifices made by pre- 
ceding generations, a relative immunity which is not enjoyed 
by the majority of Europeans. 

In the acquisition of one of these immunities, a race may 
lose another. In connection with the cholera which I have 
just mentioned, Creole Whites and Negroes were attacked 
to an appreciably greater extent than Whites and Negroes 
who had recently immigrated, and were consequently not 
yet acclimatised. Thus, the conditions of life in Guadaloupe, 
and those of other Mexican islands, seem to exercise a 
double action. On the one hand, it diminishes in a con- 
siderable degree the aptitude to contract yellow fever; on 
the other, it renders the human organism appreciably more 
accessible to the influence of cholera. 

VI. Such significant facts as these require no comment. 
It is clear that we have here those relative immunities 
which several polygenists wished to consider as specific 
characters. Without possessing anything approaching the 
importance which, from this point of view, is possessed by 
physiological phenomena, they equally render evident the 
fundamentally identical nature of all human groups. Owing 
their special element essentially to acquired nature, they 
demonstrate the difference of races rather more clearly than 
physiological phenomena. Both, however, are equally fu no- 
tional ; and the functions acting necessarily under the imme- 
diate influence of the conditions of life, demonstrate almost 
in the same degree the preponderating influence of the latter. 

VII. We cannot touch upon questions of ethnological 
pathology without saying a few words upon the strange and 



428 The Human Species. 

fatal influence which the White race seems to exercise upon 
certain inferior races whose territories it has invaded. 

Nowhere is this melancholy phenomena more striking 
than in Polynesia. Figures here speak with touching 
eloquence. 

In the Sandwich Islands Cook calculated the population 
at 300,000. In 1861 there were but 67,084, about 22 per 
cent, of the original population. 

In New Zealand Cook found 400,000 Maories. In 1858 
there were only 56,049 remaining, 14 per cent, of the former 
population. Depopulation has continued from that time. 
From 1855 to 1864 the loss was 22 per cent, for the province 
of B-otor ua, the Lakes and Maketou ; it was 19 per cent, in 
two years, from 1859 to 1861, in the Chatham Islands. 

In the Marquesas Islands, in 1813, Porter calculated there 
were 19,000 warriors, giving a population of from 70,000 to 
80,000. In 1858 M. Jouan found 2,500 or 3,000 warriors 
and about 11,000 inhabitants, a decrease of 86 per cent. 

From a comparison of the estimates of Cook and Forster, 
it appears that the population of Tahiti must have been at 
least 240,000. In 1857 the official census only gave 7,212, 
that is to say, a little more than 3 per cent, of the original 
population. 

These facts would be equally strange, were they purely 
local. But they are universal, appearing even in the most 
isolated islands, in the Bass islands, which form the extreme 
limit of Polynesia on the south-east. At the beginning of 
the century Davies counted 2,000 inhabitants ; in 1874, 
Mcerenhout only found 300, 15 per cent, of the former 
population. 

The preceding calculations have all been taken from 
eastern Polynesia, which, as we know, was the first to attract 
Europeans. A few years ago, however, the western archi- 
pelagoes were in their turn invaded, and the population is 
already sensibly decreasing in the islands of Tonga, Yavau, 
Tongatabou, etc. The case seems to be the same in the Fiji's. 

Not only does the rate of mortality increase in this un- 



Decline of the Polynesian Races. 429 

fortunate Polynesian race ; there is also a decrease in the 
number of births. The fact has long been noticed in a 
general manner. The following figures give it a strange pre- 
cision. In the Marquesas Archipelago, at Ta'io-Hae, M. 
Jon an saw the population fall in three years from 400 to 
250, during which time only three or four births were 
registered. In the Sandwich Islands, from among 80 women 
legitimately married, M. Delapelin found that only 39 had 
children. There were only 19 children in the twenty prin- 
cipal families of chiefs. Finally, in 1849, the official statistics 
quoted by M. Remy, give 4,520 deaths, and only 1,422 births. 
The case is the same at the other extremity of Polynesia. 
In New Zealand, says M. Colenso, marriages are rarely fertile. 
The seven principal chiefs of Ahuriri are without children, 
with the exception of Te-Hapuku ; but of the four married 
sons of the latter, three are as yet without a family. Nine 
out of eleven marriages were here barren. 

Many causes have been proposed in order to explain these 
melancholy phenomena. Wars, famines, and epidemics have 
been suggested in turn, but these scourges are only local in 
their effects. Some have mentioned syphilis, but they forget 
that the mother of (Edidee had died of this disease before 
even Wallis undertook his voyage. The blame has been 
laid on drunkenness introduced, it is said, by Europeans ; 
but before the importation of our spirits the Polynesians 
were quite able to inebriate themselves with their Jcava, 
more terrible even than our brandy. As to debauchery, we 
know to what an extent it was carried by the natives, who 
had, in that respect, nothing to learn from Europeans. 

Can it be that a higher civilization bears within itself some- 
thing which is incompatible with the existence of inferior 
races? Do the dominion exercised by the stranger, the 
invasion of the land, and the violence done to religion and 
customs inspire these men, once so free and proud, with such 
despair that they refuse to have any posterity ? We may 
allow some consideration to these moral causes in the phe- 
nomena which occur in Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands and 



430 The Human Species. 

New Zealand. But how can we apply this explanation to 
those archipelagoes where the local race has remained 
dominant, and where, with its ancient mode of life, it has 
preserved all the traditions of its ancestors ? Now this was 
the case in the Marquesas during the time that M. Jouan 
and P. Mathias were there ; European inhabitants are still 
rare in the Samoan and Tongan Islands. 

Two naval surgeons, MM. Bourgarel and Brulfert, have 
alone been able to throw some light upon this melancholy 
problem. The former found that tubercles were invariably 
present in the lungs of bodies submitted to post-mortem 
examination. The latter tells us that almost all Polynesians 
suffer from an obstinate cough, and that in eight cases out 
of ten tuberculosis follows these bronchial catarrhs. Now 
phthisis does not appear in the list of diseases drawn up by 
the old voyagers. Have we, then, imported it into these 
islands ? Developing in a new region, in a race to whom it 
was formerly unknown, has this disease assumed a more 
terrible form, with examples of which we are acquainted ? 
Already hereditary in our own case, has it become endemic 
or epidemic in Polynesia ? If it is so, we may say that it is 
all over with the Polynesian race. In another half century, 
or at most a century, it will have disappeared, at least as a 
pure race ; it will have been replaced by a cross, which in 
the Marquesas Islands has already begun to increase the 
population. 



BOOK X. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF THE HUMAN 

SPECIES. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS. 



I. In this book I propose to give under a common title a 
concise examination of the characters due to intelligence, 
morality and religion. I shall thus, perhaps, be reproached 
with having connected too closely phenomena which, else- 
where, I have attributed to different causes, and consequently 
with having, apparently at least, contradicted myself. But, on 
the one hand, after what I have said upon this subject in the 
first chapter, there can be no doubt as to the manner in 
which I regard this question ; and, on the other hand, intel- 
lectual phenomena acquire such a development in man, that 
sometimes they almost rise to the dignity of attributes, and 
therefore deserve to be placed by the side of phenomena 
which are entirely human. 

II. In the preceding chapters we have reviewed physical 
man. But man is not merely a certain portion of organised 
and living matter like a plant. Besides this there is in man 
a something which feels, judges, reasons, and wills. This 
something, the origin and nature of which it is not the duty 
of the naturalist to discover, is manifested by actions and 
by facts. These facts differ in different human races. They 
may, they ought to be, looked upon as characters, equally with 



43 2 The Human Species. 

the actions of our animal races, such as the 'pointer, the grey- 
hound, the terrier or the collie. 

We shall see that, although approaching ground generally 
regarded as belonging by right to philosophy, anthropology 
does not on that account show any less respect for the domain 
of the latter. The philosopher is concerned with the distinc- 
tion to be established between mind and matter, and with 
the discovery of the mysterious link which unites the physical 
with the intellectual being ; the anthropologist with the in- 
vestigation of the several manifestations resulting from this 
connection, and with the recognition of the distinctive charac- 
teristic marks of the groups which he is studying. The 
former goes back to causes ; the latter confines himself to 
effects, and therefore does not exceed the limits of natural 
science. 

For this ver}^ reason, in treating of man, we meet with a 
difficulty at starting, which has been already pointed out. 
When entering upon the examination of psychological facts, 
science has scarcely more than details to study, as in the 
examination of physiological characters. Here, as elsewhere, 
the conditions of life play a considerable part. If they 
exercise an influence upon the manifestations of organic life, 
they influence to an almost equal extent those actions which 
interpret the acting and reacting element in us. And not 
only does our intelligence conform to present conditions, but 
indefinitely multiplies their influence by accumulating and 
combining all anterior facts by means of memory, and im- 
poses upon itself new conditions from which new phenomena 
incessantly result. 

The study of intellectual characters must, therefore, for 
the most part be carried out by the detailed examination of 
races. Nevertheless, we may notice in passing the most 
general features of some races, if only in order to explain 
more fully the truth of the statements which have just been 
made. 

III. Language. " Animals have voice, man alone has 
speech." This truth, proclaimed by Aristotle, is universally 



Intellectual Characters — Language. 433 

accepted at the present day. Every one acknowledges that 
speech is one of the highest attributes of the human species. 
Languages, that is to say, the various forms assumed by 
speech among the different human races and their sub- 
divisions, have, on this account, a separate importance as 
differential characteristic facts. 

Without being a linguist, the anthropologist can well avail 
himself of the results obtained by philology, and compare 
them with those obtained by the study of physical cha- 
racters. When by two such different methods we arrive at 
the same conclusions, we are evidently very probably in the 
right. 

While giving the detailed history of the different races 
in my course of lectures at the Paris Museum, I was often 
obliged to extend considerably the comparison which I have 
just mentioned. I have almost invariably found the most 
striking resemblance between descriptive philology and 
anthropology. When, as an exception to this rule, we find 
a want of resemblance, or, better still, a contrast, such as 
that which exists between the physical characters and the 
language of the Basques, when compared with the neigh- 
bouring population, the problem always, as in their case, 
presents special difficulties, from ^ whatever point of view it is 
approached. 

It it more especially amongst the mixed races that the 
general agreement which I have mentioned is exhibited. 
Language often betrays at once the mixture of races, their 
succession, and the nature of the influence exercised by the 
different elements which have assisted in their formation. 
I will here give a striking example. 

All polygenists have regarded the Malays as one of their 
human species; many monogenists have considered them as 
one of the principal races. I showed long ago that, in 
reality, they are only a mixed % race in which white, black 
and yellow elements are associated, and that they are closely 
allied to the Polynesians. These facts become more striking 
every day as we know more of these two families which have 



434 The Hitman Species. 

sprung from a common stock. And further, as we study 
more thoroughly the history of these countries, we find that 
the relations between the insular and the continental regions 
must have been much closer than it was long thought could 
ever have been the case. Such are the results arrived at by 
anthropology. 

On the other hand, philologists have only been able to 
form one linguistic family from all the Malayan and 
Polynesian languages, when considered from a grammatical 
point of view. As to vocabulary, the following are the 
results given by Bitter. 

The Malay language comprises in every 100 words — 

50 Polynesian words, all answering to a very inferior social 
condition, only designating arts and objects for which all 
languages have names (heaven, earth, moon, mountain, hand, 
eye, etc.). 

27 Malayan words, giving evidence of a more advanced 
civilization, and of the existence of arts already in a state of 
perfection (kriss). 

16 Sanscrit words expressing religious ideas and abstract 
terms (time, cause, wisdom, etc.). 

5 Arabian words relating to mythology, poetry, etc. 

2 Javanese, Dravidian, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch or 
English words, all relating to commerce. 

We see, therefore, that the language of the Malays explains, 
so to speak, under another form, the same facts as their 
physical characters. 

IV. Although a naturalist, and therefore habitually dis- 
posed to attribute to the characters drawn from physical 
man a preponderating importance, I cannot allow that this 
superiority is absolutely constant. There are some facts 
which speak too strongly. Had it not been for their special 
language no one would have hesitated to consider the 
Basques as belonging to the- same family as other Southern 
Europeans. Had their special dolichocephaly been dis- 
covered, as it has been by M. Broca, no one would have 
thought of making them allophylian whites. It is the same 



Intellectual Characters — Language. 435 

with the peoples of the Caucasus, who were long considered, 
entirely on account of their physical characters, as the pure 
stock of White European populations. We must, therefore, 
acknowledge that in some cases language has a characteristic 
importance superior to that of external features and anato- 
mical facts, or, at least, that it furnishes indications more 
readily understood. 

This alternation of value between certain characters will 
cause no surprise to naturalists who are familiar with the 
results of modern zoology. They know that it is the same 
with animal species. In the vertebrata the respiratory 
organs furnish characters of the first order, which are 
dominant : in annelids, and in secondary types in which 
this function is less rigorously localized, families, perfectly 
similar in other respects, have the branchia very highly deve- 
loped or altogether wanting. In their case the characters 
drawn from the respiratory organs are evidently secondary 
and subordinate. If this is the case between different 
species and different groups, we must not be surprised if, 
with still greater reason, it should be the same between 
different races. 

V. In anthropological applications of the science of lan- 
guage, every one will allow that far more importance must 
be attributed to grammar than to vocabulary; it is clear that 
it cannot be otherwise. But have we not in certain cases, 
despised too much the information which may be derived 
from the latter ? The results to which Young has arrived from 
the calculation of probabilities may, it seems to me, be very 
aptly quoted here. The object of the illustrious author w T as 
to discover, how many similar words in two different lan- 
guages were necessary to authorize us in considering these 
words as having belonged to the same language. From 
these calculations it appears that the common possession of 
one word has no meaning. But the probability of unity of 
origin is already three to one when there are two words 
common to both, and more than ten to one when there are 
three. When the number of words common to both is six, 



436 The Human Species. 

the probability is more than 1,700, and almost 100,000 when 
there are eight. 

It is, therefore, almost certain that eight words common to 
two different languages have originally belonged to the same 
language, and when isolated in the midst of a language to 
which they do not belong must be regarded as imported. 
These conclusions of the learned Englishman are of extreme 
importance. They tend to make anthropologists regard the 
relations between various peoples in a different manner from 
that to which many anthropologists have been accustomed, 
and force us to admit the existence of communications which 
we should otherwise be inclined to doubt. 

VI. Whilst fully recognising the undoubted importance of 
linguistic characters, we must not trust to them entirely as 
guides in the estimation of ethnological relations. A lan- 
guage may become extinct and be replaced upon the same 
spot. The mere linguist would then assume the annihilation 
of a race or population which was in reality flourishing. 
This was the case with the Canary Islanders. The descen- 
dants of the Guanches having all adopted the Spanish 
language, it was thought that they no longer existed, till 
M. Berthelot showed that in reality they formed the basis 
of the population of the whole archipelago. 

VII. Monogenism and polygenism have fought, and are 
still fighting upon linguistic as well as upon organographical 
grounds. Thus it has very often happened that the scientific 
question has been obscured by considerations entirely foreign 
to science ; and with the less reason as the opposed doctrines 
have really less connection with this subject than has 
generally been supposed. 

From a linguistic point of view the problem may be stated 
in the following terms :— Was there in times past, a single 
primitive language, from which all languages, living or dead, 
have sprung ? Or rather, have languages existed, and do 
languages still exist, which cannot be traced to a common 
origin ? 

We shall at once understand the reply of the polvgenistic 



Intellectual Characters — Language, 437 

philologist. Arguing from the differences by which certain 
families of languages are separated, they declare them to be 
irreducible, and with Crawfurd, M. Hovelacque, and others, 
state their belief " in the original plurality of the races which 
have been formed with them." On the other hand, this 
irreducibility is denied by Max Miiller, who, without as yet 
affirming the existence of a primitive language, allows us to 
see that, in his opinion, all philological researches are tending 
to the demonstration of this fact. 

Being a complete stranger to studies of this nature, I 
cannot express an opinion upon special questions. I shall 
confine myself to the statement of some general facts, and to 
pointing out the sense in which they seem to me to claim 
most attention. 

This irreducibility, upon which the polygenistic philologists 
rely, recalls the argument, which is based upon physical cha- 
racters, and consists in contrasting the Negro with the White. 
This argument long possessed a certain appearance of strength, 
which it has lost as more numerous intervening links were 
discovered between these two extremes. It seems to me 
that the general progress of philology is tending to the same 
result. All linguists now place side by side languages which 
would have been considered irreducible at the beginning of 
the century. 

A certain number of languages may remain isolated with- 
out this fact affording any evidence against the specific unity 
of man. In all philological schools it is acknowledged that 
languages are variable and perishable. Now we do not know 
all the dead languages, and if some of the links in the chain 
are wanting it will at once be evident that relations which 
formerly existed have been lost to us for ever. 

Let anyone, moreover, refer to the observations of Lubbock 
upon roots, and he will at once admit that a certain number 
among them can scarcely be common to all languages. 
Those who hold that language is not of divine origin, but a 
human invention and creation, cannot help adopting the 
conclusions of the learned Englishman on this point. Now, 



43 8 The Human Species. 

however few these radical differences may be, they necessarily 
involve irreducibility, which cannot, however, on that account 
be invoked as an argument against monogenism. 

In support of this conclusion, I am fortunate enough to be 
able to appeal to the testimony of a judge, both competent 
and trustworthy. Whitney, in his work upon " The Life of 
Language," has examined the same question. With Craw- 
furd and M. Hovelacque, the American linguist admits that 
there are linguistic families which cannot be referred to a 
common origin. He does not, however, stop at the bare 
fact ; he demonstrates and discusses the causes of it. He 
then gives, in the following terms, the general conclusion of 
this discussion : " The incompetency of the science of philo- 
logy to decide upon the unity or diversity of human races 
appears to be completely and irrevocably demonstrated." 

However this may be, the results thus acquired bring to 
light a fact, the importance of which ought not, it seems to 
me, to be overlooked. Taking as guide the work of a man 
whose competency is above dispute, arranging the tables of 
the linguistic families admitted by M. Maury, and repre- 
senting by lines the relations pointed out by this learned 
writer, we see that there exists between one language and 
another an intercrossing of characters extremely analogous 
to that which I have so often pointed out in human groups. 
No one has supported the Irypothesis of the multiple origins 
of languages more resolutely than Agassiz. In the memoir, 
which I attacked from a geographical point of view, he 
expressed himself very clearly upon this point. Since then 
he has developed the same ideas. I have already said that, 
in his opinion, mankind was created by nations, that each 
received, with its physical features, its particular language, 
developed in every direction, and just as characteristic as the 
voice of an animal species. I feel it necessary to insist upon 
this point here, and to quote the text itself : " Let anyone 
follow upon a map," says Agassiz, "the geographical dis- 
tribution of the bear, the felidse, the ruminants, the gal- 
linaceas, or of any other family: we can prove, with just as 



/ 



Intellecttial Characters — Language. 439 



much evidence as any philological research can for human 
languages, that the growling of the bear of Kamschatka is 
allied to that of the bear of Thibet, of the East Indies, of the 
Sonda Islands, of Nepaul, Syria, Europe, Siberia, the United 
States, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes. Yet all these 
bears are considered to be distinct species, having in no way 
inherited voice from each other. Nor have the different 
human races done so. All this is equally true of the crowing 
of the gallinaceaa, of the quacking of ducks, as well as of the 
song of thrushes, who all pour forth their gay and harmonious 
notes, each in their own dialect, which is neither inherited nor 
derived from another, although all sing in thrush language. 
Let philologists study these facts, and if they are not abso- 
lutely blind to the signification of analogies in nature, they 
will themselves come to doubt the possibility of placing any 
confidence in philological arguments employed to prove 
genetic derivation." 

Agassiz is logical, and he exhausts the consequences of his 
theory. But he forgets one important fact which may be 
opposed to all those who, either fully or partially, embrace 
this order of ideas. 

No animal species has ever changed its voice for that of a 
species nearly allied to it. An ass's colt, reared by a mare 
and isolated in the midst of horses, never forgets its bray or 
learns to neigh. While, on the contrary, it is well known, 
that a White, if placed in earliest infancy in the midst of 
Chinese or Australians, will only speak their language. The 
converse is equally true. 

The reason of this is that the animal voice is a funda- 
mental character, adhering evidently to the nature of the 
being, susceptible of slight modification, but incapable of dis- 
appearing, or of transference as a whole ; it is a specific 
character. 

Human language is entirely different. It is essentially 
variable, and subject to modification from one generation to 
another ; it is subject to transformation ; it borrows and 
loses ; it may be replaced by another ; it is evidently sub- 



440 The Human Species. 

ordinate to the intelligence and to the conditions of life. 
We can only, therefore, regard it as a secondary character ; 
a character of race. 

From the linguistic point of view, the specific attribute of 
man is not the special language which he employs, it is the 
faculty of articulation, speech, which has given him the 
power of creating a primitive language, and to vary it in- 
finitely by means of his intelligence and will, more or less 
influenced by innumerable circumstances. 

Here, again, I am fortunate enough to be able to support 
opinions, which I have long maintained, by the conclusions 
of Whitney upon this point. " Now," says this learned 
linguist, "to pretend, in order to explain the variety of 
languages, that the power of expression has been virtually 
different in different races, that one language has contained, 
from its origin and in its primitive materials, a formative 
principle which is not in others ; that the elements employed 
for a formal usage were formal by nature, and so on, — all 
this is pure mythology." 

VIII. General relations between languages and human 
races. It is generally admitted that human languages may 
be traced to three fundamental groups ; the first, monosyllabic, 
or isolating languages ; the second, agglutinative, or suffix 
languages ; the third, inflectional languages. Thus, there 
are three linguistic types, as there are also three physical 
types. It will not be without interest to discover what 
relations are displayed by the characters drawn from these 
two orders of considerations. 

The monosyllabic languages represent the most rudi- 
mentary condition of human language, which, moreover, has 
only arrived at inflection after passing through the period of 
agglutination. Considered from this point of view, languages 
have arrived at perfection by degrees, and it is only natural 
' to inquire if the general degree of elevation of races corre- 
sponds with that of the development of language. 

From a comparison of the results of philological and 
physical studies, it is at once evident that this is not the 



Intellectual Characters — Language. 441 

case. Chinese, the most monosyllabic language, is spoken 
by one of the earliest civilized nations, belonging funda- 
mentally to the yellow type. Tribes holding the lowest 
place, springing from the Negro type, speak, on the contrary, 
agglutinative languages, that is to say, have attained the 
second stage. I have already pointed out this fact, and 
insisted upon the consequences which arise from it with 
reference to the relative antiquity of human groups. 

Nevertheless, we must remark that the greater number of 
Whites speak languages which have attained the highest 
degree of perfection — inflectional languages. Allophylian 
Whites, alone, are still in the agglutinative stage. 

If, after having read the information which is given by 
philologists upon the distribution of races, we look at the 
map, we shall again meet with some very interesting 
general facts. 

Monosyllabic languages are only found in Asia, as -it were 
localized, and only occupy a very limited space. They were 
at one time even restricted to a kind of island, bounded by 
the sea on the east, and on all other sides by agglutinative 
languages. It is entirely due to the Aryan conquest that 
they have been placed in contact with inflectional lan- 
guages. 

The latter, now universally distributed, were for a long 
time confined to the old continent, of which, moreover, they 
were far from occupying the greatest part. Their expansion 
dates from the great modern discoveries. 

Languages of intermediate development, the agglutinative 
languages, occupied before this epoch, as they still do, the 
larger portion of the surface of the globe. We do not know 
at what period they lost ground in Europe, but we can already 
almost assert as a fact, that they predominated there in former 
times. They probably occupied the whole of this part of the 
world before the Aryan invasion or infiltration. Perhaps they 
were spoken by quaternary man. However this may be, be- 
fore the great and quite recent emigrations of European races, 
agglutinative languages reigned throughout the greater part 



44 2 The Human Species, 

of Asia, almost the whole of Africa, and all America and 
Oceania, 

In pointing out approximately the areas occupied by the 
three fundamental groups of languages, we find that the 
agglutinative languages alone occupied but a short time ago 
about f f of the earth's surface, inflectional languages y\-, and 
monosyllabic languages —- ; or nearly T y 7 , -%^ and -3-^. 

Agglutinative languages, again, have the advantage over 
the others in number. Finally, the number of nations, 
peoples or tribes, speaking these languages, is also superior 
to that of the groups which speak monosyllabic or inflectional 
languages. 

But it is well known how slight a relation there is be- 
tween the population of a country, and either its extent 
or the number of human groups by which it is peopled. 
In order to gain an idea of the importance, or of the part 
played upon the surface of the globe, by one, or by a group 
of languages, w T e must calculate the number of individuals 
by whom it is used. Now, in comparing statistical and 
linguistic data, for which we are indebted to MM. d'Omalius 
and Maury, we find that inflectional languages are spoken 
by 536,900,000 human beings ; monosyllabic languages 
by 449,000,000 ; and agglutinative languages only by 
216,550,000. 

IX. Writing. Writing is, so to speak, to speech what 
speech is to thought. Nevertheless, by its very nature it 
furnishes the anthropologist with but very few precise data. 
Invented in a very limited number of places, it has been 
communicated from place to place, and by initiation. In 
their passage from one nation to another, the graphic re- 
presentations of languages are often sensibly modified, and, 
from this point of view, they may undoubtedly be of real 
assistance to ethnology. But there is no real relation be- 
tween the several forms which they assume, and the human 
groups by which they are employed. 

We can hardly connect with writing the various arrange- 
ments of stories which were used by the Mexican Neophytes 



Intellectual Characters — Writing. 443 

to recall to memory their prayers, or the purely mnemo- 
technical process observed by different travellers, such as the 
Wampum of the Red-Skins. But the latter, and especially 
the Chinese, Thibetian and Peruvian Quipos, were something 
more than this. Here the colour and the mode of juxta- 
position of straws, shells, or wood, the knots and the colour 
of the threads, had a conventional value permitting the ex- 
pression of ideas, of great and multiple numbers, etc- In 
Peru it seems that real books were ivritten in this manner. 
Unfortunately, as M. Maury remarks, it is now impossible to 
decipher these singular productions. 

Pictography, even, in a form as rudimentary as that which 
existed and which still exists anions the Red Skins, where 
Schoolcraft has studied it very thoroughly, was probably 
the universal starting point for writing properly so called. 
It is well known that pictography bears a strong resem- 
blance to our rebus, and that it has its monuments, which 
have been discovered by several travellers in Siberia, North 
America, the basin of the Orinoco, and even as far as Pata- 
gonia. 

When symbolism was introduced into pictography, it would 
seem that a step had really been made, although grave errors 
may result from this manner of representing events, when the 
sense of the symbol is forgotten. The Virginians represented 
the Europeans, their ships and arms, by a white swan vomit- 
ing five. There was here evidently the germ of some legend. 
This observation alone, enables us to comprehend and inter- 
pret some of the traditions, fabulous in form, but having a 
foundation of truth, which have been collected with reference 
to the past history of certain American tribes. Nevertheless, 
symbolism has the advantage of accustoming the mind to de- 
tach itself from the material reproductions of objects. It is 
then an easy matter to pass to the graphic reduction of the 
symbol, and afterwards to the idiographic sign. At length, 
spurred on by the stimulus of necessity, the phonetic sign is 
reached. 

Even when the representation of the syllable is attained, 



444 1 h e Human Species. 

writing has made immense progress. It seems as if certain 
races, in spite of contact with more advanced nations, and 
though they may have before their eyes examples of alpha- 
betic writing, can never get beyond this. So at least it is at 
the present time with the Cherokees in Florida and the Vei 
on the coast of Africa. Sequoyah and Doala Bukara, in 
their efforts to imitate the Yankees and Arabs, only invented 
spelling-books. And yet the papers printed by the former 
bore, by the side of the Cherokee text, the English alphabetic 
translation. 

It is unnecessary to insist upon the immense superiority of 
alphabetic writing. This means of fixing speech, at once so 
simple and so complete, has always presented an appear- 
ance of the marvellous to those who were unacquainted with 
it ; and the ancients, struck with its utility, and not knowing 
that man had gained the art by slow stages, did not hesitate 
to regard it as a divine invention. Cicero himself seems 
inclined to share this opinion. We now know that the honour 
of this great discovery really belongs to the Phoenicians. 

But the Phoenicians did not make this discovery at once 
or by their own efforts. MM. Wuttke and Lenormand have 
rightly given the honour of having prepared the way for, 
and of almost achieving the discovery, to the Egyptians. 
Egyptian writing, with its figurative, idiographic and phonetic 
signs, displays the whole course traversed by the human mind 
in rising from simple pictography to the alphabet. Unfor- 
tunately the Egyptians, fettered by the combined influences 
of their past, and by the very mass of ideas and facts repre- 
sented in their complicated writing, especially perhaps by 
their religious traditions, could not free themselves from the 
cumbersome element in their system of writing. A strange 
people, free from these restraints, could alone, as M. Maury 
has remarked, take this step. 

The Phoenician alphabet once discovered spread rapidly. 
At the same time, however, it necessarily underwent modifi- 
cations to suit, sometimes veritable necessities, sometimes 
simple convenience or caprice. M. Lenormand admits five 



Intellectual Characters — Writing. 445 

great families of writing, as representing this filiation. These 
are the Semitic, Greco-Italian, Western or Iberian, and 
Northern or Indo-homerite. The latter, perhaps, owed its 
origin to the alphabet of Yemen, which, introduced into 
India about the third or fourth century of our era, has 
engendered almost all the Oriental alphabets. 

Egypt and Phoenicia were not the only centres in which 
the art of writing took its rise. It also came into existence 
in the Old World in Mesopotamia and China, and in Mexico 
in the New World. Hieroglyphic writing, itself arising out 
of pictography, has been the universal starting-point, but in 
each case writing has stopped short at different stages. 

Cuneiform writing has not attained the alphabet, and 
seems to consist of a mixture of idiographic and syllabic 
signs. In China writing has remained idiographic. Under 
the influences, however, of Buddhist missionaries, who made 
known the Devanagari alphabet in the extreme East, the 
Japanese and the Coreans, after having servilely imitated 
the Chinese, were the first to reach syllabism, the second to 
attain a veritable alphabet. 

In Mexico, writing consisted of the mixture, still very con- 
fused, of symbolic, idiographic and phonetic signs, the latter 
representing, in some cases syllables, in others, simple letters. 
The discoveries made by l'Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg seem 
to indicate that in Yucatan greater progress had been made, 
and that the Palanque inscriptions are really alphabetic. It 
is much to be regretted that up to the present time the 
important facts, for which we are indebted to the aged cure' 
of Rabinal, have not been utilized. The reading of the 
inscriptions of Central America would have a very different 
interest to the deciphering of a few more Egyptian tablets. 
However this may be, it is evident that the multiplicity, the 
variety of alphabets, and even their filiation furnish the 
anthropologist with characters of great importance, and 
specially fitted to establish ancient relations between human 
groups in some cases widely separated. 

X. Social condition. Man is essentially a social being. 



446 The Humct7i Species. 

'< Were any one to ascend to heaven alone, and listen alone 
to the harmony of the spheres, he would not enjoy these 
marvels," a Greek philosopher has said. Thus we find the 
human species everywhere collected into more or less 
numerous societies. In exceptional cases, which may be gene- 
rally explained by a violent dispersion, these societies always 
consist of a more or less considerable number of families, and 
deserve at least the designation of peoples. 

However limited or numerous peoples, tribes, or nations 
may be, the existence of three elementary social conditions 
has long been accepted as a fact, each of which is connected 
with the satisfaction of the first and most imperious of all 
necessities, that, namely, of nourishment. A certain grada- 
tion may, moreover, be observed in these conditions. Man at 
first only depended upon daily industry for his subsistence : 
he hunted either terrestrial or aquatic animals : he became 
a hunter or a fisherman. He afterwards brought the 
herbivorous species under his power, and found an unfailing 
resource in his flocks : he became a shepherd. Finally he 
directed his attention to the earth ; he multiplied and culti- 
vated certain plants which he learnt to know by experience ; 
he became an agriculturist. In the latter case his diet 
would be fundamentally vegetables ; in the two former flesh 
would form the basis of his food. 

It is clear that these several kinds of existence place man 
under very different conditions of life, and impose upon him 
certain necessities, by demanding the development of physical 
and intellectual faculties which sometimes bear but a very 
slight resemblance to each other. In this manner certain 
physical and intellectual peculiarities are engendered, which, 
developed by exercise and heredity, finally become characters 
of races. 

The hunter and fisherman present some points of resem- 
blance in their manner of life. Both are obliged to display 
in turn, and occasionally at the same moment, according to 
the animal they are pursuing, a great amount of patience and 
courage ; they must never be at a loss for a resource. Both, 



Intellectual Characters — Social Condition. 447 

even when placed in the most favourable circumstances, pass 
alternately from extreme activity to almost complete repose. 
But the fisherman's field of action is on the whole less exten- 
sive than that of the hunter, and he is not like the latter, 
forced to exercise all his physical faculties. He will probably 
never possess the same delicacy of hearing, or the same 
agility. Moreover, neither of them are placed in conditions 
favourable to intellectual development properly so called. 

The shepherd is much more independent in certain 
respects, while at the same time he is subject to greater 
regularity. He is always sure of his morrow. The daily 
duties to his charge once fulfilled, he is at liberty to abandon 
himself to reflection and revery, so that his intellectual 
faculties have every facility for development. 

This is still more strongly the case with the agriculturist. 
Seed-time and harvest are to him times of inevitable physical 
activity. Between the two he can rest at leisure, and apply 
the faculties with which he is endowed to something entirely 
different. 

These three elementary modes of human society involve 
immediate consequences. 

Game, in the true acceptance of the term, is nowhere so 
abundant as to afford an indefinite amount of nourishment 
to populations, however small, accumulated upon one spot. 
A great extent of country is absolutely necessary to the 
hunter, so that he can only form very limited communities. 
As soon as they increase in size they are forced to separate. 
Fishermen may form larger communities, particularly upon 
the shore of a productive sea. Even in their case, however, 
the size of the population is necessarily confined within some- 
what narrow limits. 

The pastoral condition allows the formation of more nume- 
rous societies ; but it also involves the existence of vast 
tracts entirely given up to grazing. Like the chase, there- 
fore, though in a less degree, it enforces subdivisions. 

The culture of the soil permits the development of a 
population at once dense and continuous. 
20 



448 The Human Species, 

The hunter, as a natural consequence of his warlike habits, 
is inevitably a warrior ; war is, in fact, nothing more than a 
" man -hunt." Any discussion about a hunting-ground may 
easily result in war, as the subsistence of the hunter is in 
question. This war would be conducted without mercy, for 
every prisoner would not only be useless, but an incumbrance 
to the conqueror ; another mouth to feed. The hunter would 
kill him, and however little may be due to passion on the 
one hand, and pride on the other, he will put him to death 
with torments endured with heroic firmness. 

The shepherd also will often be involved in armed con- 
flict, for he must defend his pastures and his flocks. But, in 
his case, war will be less bitter ; the prisoner may be useful 
to him. He can be forced to attend to the flocks, and, in 
return, be fed without involving any sacrifice : he can be a 
slave. 

Were it not for the necessity of mutual .destruction, which 
seems to be innate in man, and which, as yet, civilization has 
not been able to extirpate, agricultural tribes would have no 
cause to make war upon each other; indeed, it would be 
much more to their interests to avoid it. All that can be 
said, however, is that in their case it becomes by degrees less 
cruel. Here, again, the prisoner can be utilized. He is 
first reduced to slavery. Then it becomes evident that a 
certain amount of liberty might be profitable to the master, 
so he passes from the condition of a slave to that of a serf. 

The three conditions which I have just described still exist 
upon the globe ; and in each of the three great types of 
mankind, examples may still be pointed out at the present 
day. The White tribes of the north-west coast of America 
are fishers ; some Arab tribes are still in the pastoral state, 
through which the Aryans, the progenitors of the present 
Indians, who are so essentially agricultural, have passed. 
Among the Yellows, the Tunguses of Daouria, are perhaps 
the most perfect type of a hunting people, as the hordes of 
Central Asia are of a shepherd people, and the Chinese 
of an agricultural people. Finally, among the Negroes, 



Intellectual Characters — Social Condition. 449 

the Tasmanians were exclusively hunters and fishers, the 
Kaffirs are essentially shepherds, and the natives of Guinea 
agriculturalists. 

Thus the fundamental nature of the social condition is not 
a character of race. The three physical types present the 
three social types. 

From this fact alone we might conclude that between the 
three human types, regarded from the point of view of 
civilization, there are none of those radical differences which 
have been admitted, d priori, by some authors. 

This conclusion can only be distinctly shown by a detailed 
study of the races. I can here merely state it, insisting 
upon this point that, in spite of the assertions of M. de 
Gobineau to the contrary, there still exist Whites in a dis- 
tinctly savage state. We need only read the details given by 
Cook, La Perouse, Meares, Marchand, Dixon, Dr. Scouler, 
and others, upon some Kolushes, and we shall be forced to 
recognise these fishers, whose women besmear themselves 
with grease and soot, and wear a girdle, as both true Whites 
and true savages, who in many respects must rank below 
the Negro of Ardra or Juida. 

On the other hand, the very names which I have just 
mentioned, especially those of Ghanata, Sonrhai and Melle, 
with which Barth has made us acquainted, suffice to prove 
that the most strongly characterized Negro, the typical 
Negro, has the power of raising himself to a considerably 
advanced social condition. It has been said, that, without 
being a savage, he has remained a barbarian, as was the 
case with our German or Gaulish ancestors. This view is 
not a just one ; the Negro has risen much higher. The 
annals of Amed Baba show that in the Middle Ages the 
basin of the Niger contained empires very little inferior in 
many respects to European kingdoms of the same epoch. 

As to the Yellow races, it will be sufficient to remember 
that the whole of the Aryan race was plunged in barbarism 
at the time when China was acquainted with the calendar, 
had determined the form of the earth, and recognised the 



45 o The Human Species. 

flattening of the poles, had woven materials in silk, and 
possessed a coinage. 

XL Ought we to conclude from these and from many 
analogous facts which I cannot quote, that there exists a 
perfect equality between human races, that they all possess 
the same aptitudes, and can all rise, in ever}?- respect, to the 
same degree of intellectual development ? Not so, for this 
would be a departure from the truth, and an evident exaggera- 
tion. Here, again, we must return to the comparison of man 
with animals. Does it follow that, because all the races of 
dogs belong to one and the same species, they all have the 
same aptitudes ? Will a hunter choose indifferently a setter, 
or a blood-hound to use as a pointer or in the chase ? Will 
he consider the street-cur as of equal value with either of 
these pure -breeds % Clearly not. Now we must never for- 
get that, while superior to animals and different to them in 
many respects, man is equally subject to all the general laws 
of animal nature. The law of heredity is one of those from 
which he cannot escape, and it is this law which, under the 
influence of the conditions of life, fashions races and makes 
them what they are. 

When centuries have passed over a group of men, when 
from generation to generation, and under the influence of 
certain physical, intellectual and moral conditions, the whole 
being has contracted a certain habit, we cannot form any 
definite idea as to what length of time and what fresh cir- 
cumstances would be necessary to efface this impression and 
form the race anew. In any case, it can only rise by under- 
going modifications, and this fact alone produces a new or 
a derived race. 

The result of all the conditions by which races have been 
formed has been to establish between them a present in- 
equality which it is impossible to deny. Such, however, is 
the exaggeration into which negvophiles by profession have 
fallen, when they maintain that the Negro in former ages, 
and in his present condition, is the equal of the White. 
A single fact will be a sufficient answer to them. 



Intellectital Characters — Savagery. 451 

The discoveries of Barth have placed beyond a shadow of 
doubt the existence of a 'political history among the Negroes, 
which had previously been a matter of doubt. But this very 
fact alone only serves to place in still stronger relief the 
absence of that intellectual history which is demonstrated 
by a general progressive movement, by literary, architectural 
and artistic monuments. The Negro race, left to itself, has 
produced nothing of this kind. An attempt has been made, 
in order to disguise this too manifest inferiority, to refer to 
the Negro race those peoples of black colour, who can only 
be said to be connected with it by crosses in which the 
superior blood predominates. 

XII. Must we therefore pass to the opposite extreme, and 
admit that there are races radically incapable of elevating 
themselves above the social condition in which their ancestors 
have lived ? This question has often been proposed, and has 
been answered in two different ways. 

The attempt has been made, by means of a certain number 
of facts taken from America and Oceania, as well as from 
Africa, to show that certain human populations were irre- 
vocably destined to a savage condition. The upholders of 
this opinion have chiefly quoted as examples the indigenous 
inhabitants of North America and Australia. Yet whoever 
will consider the matter from an unprejudiced point of view, 
will see at once, sometimes in the very facts brought forward 
by those who depreciate them, a clear proof that, placed in 
favourable conditions, these races would be able to raise 
themselves far above the condition in which we have found 
them, and would, in some respects at least, very quickly reach 
our level. 

As far as the Red -Skins and the allied groups are concerned 
all doubt has been dissipated by the great work of School- 
craft, and several reports since published. 

There is, at the present day, upon the banks of the Cattar- 
augus, an agricultural and laborious population, formed from 
the remnants of the Iroquois, which has its schools, its 
printing establishments, and its journals. It is useless to 



452 The Human Species. 

insist upon what the Kreecks, Cherokees and Choctaws have 
become. We know that these nations of the South had, of 
their own accord, started on the high road of settled civiliza- 
tion, that they cultivated and exported cotton, and published 
journals written in their own language, and printed in cha- 
racters invented by one of their own nation. The govern- 
ment of Washington drove them from their lands, and 
transported them to the basin of the Arkansas. They there 
set themselves to work again, and travellers tell us that some 
of their farms even rival those of the Yankees. 

But in reply to this the objection will be made that the 
Algonquins and the Dacotahs have resisted every attempt 
which has been made to assimilate them to Whites, and to 
civilization. This is an error, or rather it is but half the 
truth, and for this very reason affords important information 
to those who are inclined to receive it. The Algonquins 
(true Red-Shins), and the Dacotahs (Sioux) separated. Some 
renounced their ancient mode of life, and imitated that of 
the Cherokees, others adhered to it ; how variable, then, is 
this supposed indelible character ; how completely subordinate 
to a thousand insignificant local circumstances ! 

In fact, nothing has taken place with regard to the Ameri- 
can Aborigines which could not also be observed amono- 
Whites. Side by side with the Arab of the town, dwells the 
Arab of the desert and the tent. In the same manner the 
natives of North America, when left to themselves, differed 
upon certain points. In the basin of the Rio del Norte, 
and beyond it, side by side with the urban and agricul- 
tural inhabitants of the pueblos, dwelt nomad and hunting 
tribes. The latter sometimes pillaged the former, but 
they did not the less recognise the kinship existing between 
them. 

What here took place spontaneously still takes place under 
the pressure of the White. Is there anything strange in 
this % In every case when the half of a nation transforms its 
social condition, we cannot draw our conclusion from the 
backwardness of the other half, and say that it would be 



Intellecttial Characters — Savagery. 453 

incapable of doing so as a whole. We might, with equal 
reason, maintain that a great number of Europeans were 
incapable of learning to read. 

There remain the Australians. 

I approach this subject very unwillingly. In no part of 
the globe has the White shown himself so merciless to- 
wards inferior races as in Australia; nowhere has he so 
audaciously calumniated those whom he has plundered and 
exterminated. In his opinion, the Australians are not even 
men. They are beings " in whom are combined all the worst 
characters which mankind could present, at many of which, 
monkeys, their congeners, would blush." (Butler Earp.) 
Noble minds have doubtless protested against these terrible 
words, addressed to convicts who were about to seek their 
fortunes in Australia ; but what could be expected of them 
when every evil passion was called forth and supported by 
similar arguments, which, again, rested upon assertions given 
as scientific ? The result of these experiences in Australia 
and Tasmania is well known ; and those who wish for further 
information have only to consult travellers of every country, 
Darwin as well as Petit-Thouars. 

To maintain at the present day that the Australians are 
what Bory de Saint- Vincent and the anthropologists of that 
school endeavoured to prove them to be, is to deny unques- 
tionable facts established by travellers of every description. 
This race has no more shown itself to be absolutely savage 
than any other human race. It organised the family and 
divided the tribe and nation into true clans, the account of 
which is still extant. The Australians, more advanced upon 
this point than the Tahitians, understood the division of land 
amongst themselves, and the fixed limits agreed upon were 
religiously respected, except in time of war. I shall speak 
about their religious and moral characters at another time. 
We have here only to consider their intellectual characters, 
and I shall only add that these savages possessed villages of 
from 800 to 1000 inhabitants, that they knew how to hollow 
out canoes, and made nets for hunting and fishing, which 



454 The Human Species. 

were sometimes 80 feet long and of sufficient strength to 
resist the struggles of a kangaroo. 

It will, however, be objected that all this does not consti- 
tute a well advanced social condition. Granted ; but are the 
Australians incapable, as it has so often been said, and as it 
still is asserted, of raising themselves above this condition ? 

We have only to consult the writings of Dawson, who 
made a kind of farmers out of these savages, those of Salvado, 
who found them to be both devoted and useful workmen, 
those of Blosseville, declaring that he thought himself fortu- 
nate to be able to turn to them when the gold fever robbed 
him of European hands, and we shall be convinced of the 
inaccuracy of the assertions made on the subject of the 
radical incapacity of the Australians. Finally, if we still 
retain some feeling of doubt, we need only look back 
upon those tribes which were settled and civilized by 
William Buckley, the deserter, and we shall be forced to 
allow that the faculty of raising themselves above their past 
condition exists among the Australians as among other 
human populations. 

XIII. There are two causes which tend to lead us into 
error when we are dealing with the question of the apprecia- 
tion of the social condition of races. 

The first arises from the manner in which we regard, as a 
whole, the population to which we belong. The offspring of 
instructed and civilized classes, we forget that part of the 
nation which we left so far behind, which doubtless profits 
by the work of the intelligent classes, but does not follow 
them at all, or but very little, in the path of progress. There 
is not a country in Europe where numbers of facts, justifying 
what I have briefly stated here, may not be met with. If 
Lubbock had taken more notice of the facts around him, he 
would most certainly have modified many conclusions in his 
book. 

The other cause proceeds from our pride of race, from the 
prejudices of our education, which altogether prevent us from 
going to the root of the matter, and from recognising extreme 



Intellectual Characters — Savagery. 455 

resemblances, almost identities, if they are in the least degree 
obscured by the slightest difference of forms or words. It 
was a long time before the resemblance was observed between 
the organisation of the Maories and that of the ancient 
Scotch. And yet if we deduct anthropophagy from the one 
people and from the other all that it has borrowed from the 
neighbouring nations, we shall be forced to admit that at the 
period when Cook visited the New Zealanders, the latter 
offered strange points of resemblance to the Highlanders of 
Rob Roy and Mac Ivor. As to the Children of the Mist, 
akin to the other Scotch clans, were they much above the 
Australian tribes ? 

We must conclude, therefore, that civilization, with im- 
provements and learning of every kind, is an exceptional 
fact, even in the midst of a most privileged people, and that 
upon their own territory they have had, and still have, their 
savage representatives. We must add that this fact is 
exhibited in different degrees among yellow and black tribes. 
Lastly, in reflecting upon our past history, we must avoid 
denying to other races aptitudes, which remained latent for 
centuries in our ancestors before they were developed, and 
which are still in the same condition in too many of our 
fellow-countrymen, and of our contemporaries. 

XIV. In his remarkable work upon Origins of Civilization, 
Sir John Lubbock admits that the " primitive condition of 
man was a state of absolute barbarism." But he does not 
say what he means by this expression. Have there indeed 
ever been men living for centuries in the state depicted in 
Chinese traditions, men acknowledging no law, destitute of 
industry, ignorant of the use of fire, abandoning their dead 
without sepulture, living in trees. . . . 1 There is every 
reason to doubt it, for all established facts protest against 
this conclusion. 

Whenever it has been possible to attain even a slight 
knowledge of the life of savage tribes, they have been found 
subject to laics, which, although not written, are still rigor- 
ously observed. This fact is proclaimed by Lubbock himself. 



45 6 The Human Species. 

True, these laws may often appear to us iniquitous or bar- 
barous, but sometimes there is, even in their severities 
towards certain classes of the population, a trace of the most 
just and praiseworthy sentiments. We cannot indeed approve 
of the Australian code as regards the enactions which make 
a miserable slave of the woman ; the privileges which it 
reserves to the chiefs are perhaps excessive ; but how can we 
help being struck when we see it grant to age the same 
advantages as to rank. Respect for old age was a feature in 
the manners of the Spartans which met with the admiration 
of the Athenians; we may well recognise its value in the 
Australians. 

Mention has sometimes been made of races or populations 
dwelling in trees, such as the Orang-Kubus, certain Blacks 
of New Guinea, etc. They have been described as making 
their homes in trees after the manner of monkeys. Earle 
has reduced these exaggerations to their true value. He has 
shown that upon certain coasts, lined with a belt of man- 
groves, it is easier to walk upon the crowded, interlaced 
branches, than to force a passage along the network of aerial 
roots plunging into a bed of mud. He saw European sailors 
several times, with their muskets slung, passing over marshes 
of this nature in single file, in the same way as the Indians. 
We see, therefore, that it is not at all necessary to be abso- 
lutely savage and nearly allied to monkeys to travel in this 
manner. 

The Tasmanians, as good an example of a nomad people 
as it would be possible to mention, only erected temporary 
shelters, and yet they burnt their dead, and raised to them 
mausoleums of branches and bark, which have been de- 
scribed and figured by Peron. I have just remarked that 
the Australians had their institutions and their industries. 
Undoubtedly in Tasmania and Australia man is exhibited 
with the smallest amount of human development. And 
yet we nowhere observe that absolute barbarism which is 
apparently admitted by the learned Englishman. 

However far we go back into our past history we shall 






Intellectual Charactei's — Industries. 457 

meet with similar facts. The little that we know of tertiary 
man shews him to be in possession of fire and the art of 
cutting flints. He already has his industries, and this fact 
alone proves that his mode of life was different to that of 
the brute. 

It could not be otherwise. Whatever the cause may have 
been which determined the appearance of man upon the surface 
of the globe, he has, from the first, always been in possession 
of his specific nature. He has had from the outset his intel- 
ligence and his aptitudes wdiich, though at that time in 
a torpid and slumbering state, were ready to start into life 
under the spur of necessity. To procure nourishment and to 
defend himself against the external w T orld, he could only have 
recourse to them, and the smallest manifestations of these 
superior faculties have of necessity traced from the com- 
mencement a line of demarcation between him and the brute. 

XV. The intelligence and the aptitudes of man have mani- 
fested themselves in a thousand w r ays, which may be included 
under the general name of industries. Pacific or war- 
like, relating to the individual or to the whole population, 
they very often differ in different races, in different peoples, 
sometimes almost in different tribes. The greater number 
may consequently be considered as so many characters by 
w T hich the different groups of the human species may be 
distinguished. It will, however, at once be understood that 
questions of this nature can only be discussed in a detailed 
history, and I must here confine myself to stating one of 
those general facts which, by themselves, are sufficient to 
separate man from animals. 

The latter have only physical wants w T hich they satisfy as 
completely as possible. But, this end once attained, they go 
no further. The animal, when left to itself, does not know, or 
has scarcely a suspicion, of the superfluous. His wants are, 
therefore, always the same. 

Man, on the contrary, whether the mind or the body is in 
question, is always seeking the superfluous, often at the ex- 
pense of utility, sometimes to the detriment of the necessary, 



45 8 The Human Species, 

The result is that his wants increase from day to day. The 
luxury of the evening becomes the indispensable of the 
morrow. 

This fact is just as true with regard to the savages as to 
civilized peoples. We must, then, consider it as one of those 
characters which belong to the very nature of beings. Re- 
garded systematically from this point of view, man might 
be denned as an animal requiring the superfluous, with 
just as much reason as he has been called a reasoning 
animal. 

Moralists have at all times severely blamed this tendency 
and condemned those insatiable appetites which are always 
asking for more and for what they do not possess. I cannot 
share this view. Far from blaming in principle that which 
essentially is but the desire for the better, I cannot but see in 
it one of the noblest attributes of man. This faculty is, in 
reality, one of the most important causes of his greatness. 
When men are once fully satisfied and have no more wants, 
they will come to a standstill, and progress, that great and 
sacred law of mankind, will come to a standstill also. 

In reality, it is the want of the superfluous which has de- 
veloped all our industries, which has engendered the arts and 
sciences without which many races and nations, and, even 
among ourselves, whole populations exist perfectly well. We 
must therefore, with every reservation as to wrong applica- 
tions, accept it in the first place as a fact, in the second as a 
benefit. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



MORAL CHARACTERS. 



1. In spite of all that is exceptional and elevated in the in- 
tellectual phenomena displayed by man, they do not, when 
considered as characters, isolate us from animals. It is diffe- 
rent with moral and religious phenomena. The latter, as we 
have seen, belong essentially to the human kingdom ; they 
are the attributes of our species. Let us examine them 
rapidly, and, at the same time, invariably from this point of 
view. 

Confining ourselves rigorously to the region of facts, and 
carefully avoiding the territory of philosophy and theology, 
we may state, without hesitation, that there is no human 
society or even association in which the idea of good and evil 
is not represented by certain acts regarded by the members of 
that society or association as morally good or morally bad. 
Even among robbers and pirates theft is regarded as a mis- 
deed, sometimes as a crime, and severely punished, while 
treachery is branded with infamy ; the facts noticed by 
Wallace among the Kurubars and Santals shew how the 
consciousness of mora] good and truth is anterior to experi- 
ence, and independent of questions of utility. 

Nevertheless, Sir John Lubbock, in a work with which all 
my readers are doubtless acquainted, states that the moral 
sense is wanting in the savage. In support of this opinion 
he quotes some vague and general assertions bearing more 
particularly upon the Australians, Tahitians, Bed-Skins, etc. 
The assertions of the eminent naturalist have been so often 



460 The Human Species. 

repeated that it will only be necessary for me to examine 
them in a few words. 

In the first place, I might produce numerous quotations 
of the same nature in opposition to these assertions. I shall 
only recall the words of Wallace, speaking of the tribes in 
the midst of which he had lived. "Every individual," he 
says, "scrupulously respects the rights of his neighbour, and 
these rights are but rarely infringed." Is it possible to admit 
that this respect does not rest upon something analogous to 
that which we call morality. I shall, moreover, presently shew 
that this is really the case. 

Again, Lubbock seems to have contradicted himself when 
pointing out in his book the small amount of real liberty en- 
joyed by savages. He represents them, correctly, as being 
the slaves of a multitude of customs, having the importance 
of laws, which rule all their actions. Now, amongst these 
customs, there are a great number which are at variance with 
the most natural passions, such as the instinct of reproduc- 
tion, the choice of nourishment, etc. An infringement of these 
laws is followed by a punishment often terrible. Is it not evi- 
dent that the greater number of them can only be based upon 
the more or less distinct idea of good and evil ? 

But the idea in question resembles mathematical formula. 
The result of the solution of a general equation varies with 
the data ; and according to the latter may sometimes be re- 
presented by the sign plus, sometimes by the sign minus. 
So morality varies in its manifestations by virtue of innumer- 
able circumstances which, again, originate in numerous causes. 
The same acts are often regarded as good, bad, or indifferent, 
according to the special organisation, the religion, or the tra- 
ditions of the society in which they have occurred. 

These acts do not, on this account, cease to belong to a 
faculty essentially human ; and, whether of themselves, or 
from the idea with which they are connected in the different 
human groups, they furnish the naturalist with characters as 
true as those belonging to the intelligence. 

This is still more certainly the case when institutions are 



Moral Characters — Whites and Negroes. 461 

produced by this order of facts and ideas. These sometimes 
present such a characteristic appearance, that at the first 
glance they seem to isolate a people or a race, and reflection 
is necessary to discover the true relations which unite the 
group by which this peculiarity is presented to other popula- 
tions and races. The tabou of the Polynesians was long con- 
sidered by many writers as something absolutely special, whilst 
in reality we meet with the civil tabou in every European 
nation, and the Mosaic law throughout is a tabou code based 
upon religion. 

To arrive at the truth in this study we must approach it 
with perfect impartiality, with all the mental freedom which 
a zoologist brings to the examination of the physical characters 
of a mammal or bird. We must avoid judging foreign peoples 
whether civilized, barbarous, or savage, by our own fixed ideas. 
If we act differently, we only render ourselves liable to error 
and injustice. A momentary return to our own case, to the 
history of our race and our most advanced populations, is 
often useful in making us appreciate justly the moral 
characters of tribes and peoples which we are far too fond of 
representing to ourselves as occupying a position far below 
our own. 

II. By using this precaution, and adhering to general facts, 
we can scarcely help being struck by the intimate resem- 
blance which moral manifestations establish between all men, 
both in good and in evil ; and, melancholy though the con- 
clusion is, especially perhaps in the latter respect. For 
example, the infamous debauches of the Polynesian areois, 
the hideous vices of some American populations, have often 
been insisted upon. But let us not forget the orgies of 
Greece and Rome, certain haunts in our own great cities, 
and the terrible revelations which from time to time are 
made in the police courts of our proudest capitals. 

Fundamentally, the White, even when civilized, from the 
moral point of view is scarcely better than the Negro, and 
too often, by his conduct in the midst of inferior races, has 
justified the argument opposed by a Malgache to a mis- 



462 The Human Species. 

sionary, " Your soldiers seduce all our women . . . you come 
to rob us of our land, pillage the country, and make war 
against us, and you wish to force your God upon us, saying 
that He forbids robbery, pillage, and war ! Go, you are white 
upon one side and black upon the other ; and if we were to 
cross the river, it would not be us that the caimans would 
take." 

Such is the criticism of a savage ; the following is that of 
an European, of M. Rose, giving his opinion of his own 
countrymen : " The people are simple and confiding when we 
arrive, perfidious when we leave them. Once sober, brave 
and honest, we make them drunken, lazy, and finally thieves. 
After having innoculated them with our vices, we employ 
these very vices as an argument for their destruction." 

However severe these conclusions may appear, they are 
unfortunately true, and the history of the relations of Euro- 
peans with the populations which they have encountered in 
America, at the Cape, and in Oceania, justify them only too 
fully. As for Africa, it seems to me that the two words, 
trade and slavery, are quite sufficient to prevent a European 
from boasting too loudly of the morality of his race. 

It may, however, be objected that these crimes were per- 
petrated long ago, and will never be repeated, that slavery 
has been abolished in our colonies never to re-appear. The 
answer is but too simple, and will, I am sure, be confirmed 
by the reminiscences of more than one of my readers. In 
every case this allegation only applies to the Aryan White. 
The Semitic Whites have preserved slavery, and the accounts 
of all travellers, especially those of Barth, Livingstone, Nach- 
tigall, and Schweinfurth, show us but too clearly that it is 
still the trade of Central Africa. But is the Aryan White 
himself free from all blame upon this point ? As an answer 
to this question, I shall confine myself to mentioning some 
facts, which happened, so to speak, only the other dav. 
However melancholy the narration may be, it will at least 
serve the purpose of proving that the savage element still 
exists in the most civilized nations. I have borrowed them 



Moral Characters — Coolie Trade. 463 

from A. H. Markham, commander of the Rosario, "which was 
sent out by the English government to cruise among the 
archipelagoes of Santa Cruz and the New Hebrides, for the 
purpose of putting a stop to the practices in question. The 
truth and accuracy of this testimony, which was given in 
1873, are therefore unfortunately indisputable. 

Forty years ago the sandal-wood trade reached a develop- 
ment which is accounted for by the high value attached to 
this wood by the Chinese. Speculators fitted out ships, and 
cut down the forests of the Melanesian Islands. The natives 
naturally resisted this devastation : they were answered by 
the rifle. In 1842 the crews of two English vessels landed 
at Sandwich Island, one of the most luxuriant in the archi- 
pelago of the New Hebrides. The islanders, when resisting 
the destruction of their woods, were set upon by the Whites, 
who killed twenty-six, and, driving a great number into a 
cave, suffocated them with smoke till not one remained. 

The atrocities committed by the sandal- wood robbers have 
been surpassed by those of the pirates, who devoted them- 
selves to the labour traffic, or labour trade, which arose and 
increased with the cotton plantations which the Civil War in 
the United States multiplied in the English colonies, not 
only in Australia, but even in the Fiji Islands, and as far as 
some of the New Hebrides. 

The want of hands being felt, the idea struck Captain 
Towns of having recourse to the indigenous Blacks of the 
South Sea, offering them the inducement of wages. Success 
crowned the enterprise, and the Captain soon had imitators. 
The original plan was to engage the islanders for a fixed time, 
with the understanding that they should then be sent home. 
But the considerable gains thus obtained excited cupidity, 
and slave-dealers began to carry off Papuans in order to 
transport them to plantations where veritable slavery awaited 
them. This trade became so extensive that it acquired a 
name which was also bestowed upon child- stealing. It is 
called kidnapping, an expression which been authorised by 
official documents. 



464 The Human Species. 

All means were legitimate to the kidnappers in order to 
procure their human cargo without cost. I might here 
borrow many horrible details from Markham, but I will only 
quote one. A brig had just anchored at some little distance 
from the coast of Florida, one of the Salomon Islands. A 
canoe filled with natives coming close alongside was upset by 
a manoeuvre, apparently accidental. The boats were imme- 
diately lowered as if to render assistance to the shipwrecked 
natives. But the spectators on the rocks, or in other canoes 
saw European sailors seize the wretched men, and with a long 
knife cut off their heads on the gunwale of the boat. This 
done, the sailors returned to the brig which immediately 
set sail. The heads thus obtained were destined to pay for 
the engagement of a certain number of labourers. In many 
of those Melanesian Islands the victorious warrior decapi- 
tates and carries off the head of his vanquished enemy, and 
the respect which he gains increases with the number of 
these trophies in his possession. Now it had been agreed 
between certain chiefs and captains of vessels, that the latter 
should procure heads, and, in exchange, receive a certain 
number of living individuals, engaged for one or two years. 

It need hardly be said that at the expiration of their 
engagement the unfortunate Papuans did not regain their 
liberty. In 1867, for example, there is proof that, of 382 
islanders who ought to have been sent home, only 78 had 
been allowed to go. 

It will easily be understood that these ships, laden with 
unfortunate creatures, carried off by force or by stratagem, 
were necessarily the theatre of terrible scenes. Here again 
the commander of the Rosario quotes many facts. I shall 
only borrow the account of what happened on board the 
Carl, for the history of this slave-ship seems to me to pre- 
sent a summary of all the atrocities of kidnapping. 

The Carl quitted Melbourne in 1871, with the avowed 
intention of engaging black labourers. With her, under the 
title of passenger, went a certain Dr. James Patrick Murray, 
who was interested in the enterprise, and who seems to have 



Moral Characters — Coolie Trade. 465 

played the part of leader. When they arrived at the New 
Hebrides, the kidnappers seem to have made ineffectual 
efforts to obtain labourers by legitimate means. They soon 
had recourse to others. At Palmer Island one of them 
dressed himself as a missionary, hoping thus to attract the 
islanders on board, who fortunately discovered the trap. 
From this moment the slave dealers had recourse to violence 
alone. Their method was to approach the canoes manned 
by Papuans, and to destroy or capsize them by throwing into 
them some of those large bars of iron which are used as 
ballast. The crews were then easily captured. 

Eighty blacks had been collected in this manner. During 
the day they were allowed to come on deck, but in the 
evening they were thrust into the hold. During the night 
of the 12th of September, the prisoners made some noise. 
They were silenced by firing a pistol over their heads. 
During the following night the noise began again, and the 
same means were employed to stop it. But the blacks had 
set to work to break up the camp-beds, and thus armed they 
attacked the hatchway. The whole crew, sailors and pas- 
sengers, then began to fire into the crowd. The firing 
lasted eight hours. It stopped perhaps for a few moments, 
but began again at the least noise. 

Day broke, and all seemed quiet ; the hatchways were 
opened wide, and those who could were invited to come up 
There were jive ; all the rest were either dead or wounded. 
The corpses were hastily thrown into the sea, and at the 
same time six living individuals who were badly wounded. 

Could we find among savages many industries more 
infamous than kidnapping, many deeds more atrocious 
than those of which Dr. Murray and his accomplices Avere 
guilty ? 

Let us hasten to do justice to the local legislature and the 
English Parliament, which promulgated severe laws and rules 
for the prevention and punishment of the crimes of kid- 
napping. Unfortunately, the colonists, more or less interested 
in procuring labourers at a cheap rate, show themselves 



466 The Human Species. 

remarkably indulgent towards those whose business it is to 
provide them with coolies. Some officers of the English 
navy have learnt this to their cost. Captain Montgomery, 
commander of the Blanche, had seized, and sent to Sydney, 
the schooner Challenge as a slave ship. It was proved that 
on two occasions the Challenge had imprisoned blacks in her 
hold, who had been fraudulently enticed on to the ship ; 
that two of them had been taken, under circumstances of 
violence, to the Fijis ; that the others had only been released, 
because in their despair they had set to work to make a leak 
in the side of the vessel with a hatchet ; and, finally, that 
these wretched creatures were obliged to swim back to their 
island, from which the Challenge already lay at a distance of 
about 6J miles. In spite of these grave facts, the Challenge 
was acquitted. On the other hand, Captain Montgomery 
was condemned to pay £900 sterling damages, and interest 
to the owners of the ship. 

III. If it is only too easy to detect amongst ourselves the 
evil deeds of savages, it is, happily, easy to point out among 
these people, whom we are so ready to accuse and despise, 
the feelings upon which our own societies are founded, the 
good which, as a whole, predominates in them, and the 
virtues which we most honour. My readers will, however, 
understand that I cannot here enter into details incompatible 
with the nature of this work. We must confine ourselves to 
a rapid glance at the opinions held by men in general upon 
property, respect of human life, and self-respect, and compare 
what travellers have told us of some of the most inferior 
races with what we know of our own and of ourselves. 

It has often been said, in speaking of certain races and 
peoples, that they have no idea of property. Those who 
look a little closer into the matter will see that this is an 
error. Among tribes of warriors, hunters, or fishers, however 
low a position they may hold in the scale of humanity, arms 
and tools are looked upon as personal property, and the 
testimony of travellers, who have taken but little interest in 
the question, is very explicit upon this point. In the Paris 



Moral Characters — Property. 467 

Museum there is a boomerang upon which some signs are 
roughly carved. M. Thozet, the donor, was showing it on 
some occasion to an Australian from the neighbourhood, 
when the latter at once discovered from the signs to whom 
it had belonged. But there is another form which property 
assumes among savage or barbarous populations. If it is a 
question of land, it will often be found to be under the 
jurisdiction of the clan, tribe, or nation. The hunting- 
grounds of the Red-Skins are met with in every place 
where civilization has stopped at the level which they 
represented at the epoch of their discovery. This species of 
property exists in New Holland among peoples, supposed by 
some to be degenerate monkeys, and the right which rules 
it is so rigorous that the Australian never enters the 
property of a neighbouring tribe without express permission. 
To act otherwise is equivalent to a declaration of war. 
Our common lands, and the annual conflicts which took 
place formerly, and which, perhaps, still take place, in spite 
of official settlements, between French and Spanish shep- 
herds, will give some idea of such a state of things. Among 
certain Australian tribes, territorial property is still more 
divided and definite ; every family has its hunting-grounds, 
which are inherited by the sons to the exclusion of the 
daughters. 

Among the most savage peoples, when we have been able 
to gain definite information as to their manners, we find 
that theft is regarded as something wrong, and punished. 
Among the Australians, poaching is punished with death. 

But theft is only a crime when it is committed under 
certain circumstances. When under others it is, on the 
contrary, regarded as meritorious. To rob an enemy of 
his horses or cattle is a praiseworthy act of cunning. It is 
no longer theft, but an act of hostility. Now, to the savage 
the stranger is almost alwa} r s an enemy. The case is the 
same with a great many Aryan and Semitic peoples. Was 
it not so among the classic nations from which we derive our 
civilization ? 



468 The Human Species. 

Nothing is more common than to hear travellers accuse 
entire races of an incorrigible propensity for theft. The 
insular populations of the South Sea have, amongst others, 
been reproached with it. These people, it is indignantly 
affirmed, stole even the nails of the ships ! But these nails 
were iron, and in these islands, which are devoid of metal, 
a little iron was, with good cause, regarded as a treasure. 
Now, I ask any of my readers, supposing a ship with 
sheathing and bolts of gold, and nails of diamonds and 
rubies, were to sail into any European port, would its sheath- 
ing or its nails be safe ? . And would not numbers of people 
be found ready to reason like the Negroes, who make no 
scruple of robbing a White ? " You are so rich," they say, 
when reproached with any misdeed of this kind. 

These same Negroes, however, have a great respect for 
property among themselves. Theft does not appear to be 
more frequent with them than it is with us between Europeans, 
and the thief is punished upon the coast of Guinea precisely 
in the same manner as in Europe. 

We ought, perhaps, to refer to the idea of property the 
manner in which adultery is regarded by some peoples. In 
countries where the woman may be bought, it is evidently a 
violation of the rights of the proprietor. Nevertheless, even 
amongst the most savage tribes, a more elevated feeling, and 
one which is connected with moral or social ideas, as we 
ourselves understand them, may be proved, often in the 
clearest manner. The gravity of the punishment incurred 
by the culprit scarcely permits of a doubt that it is so. The 
Australian, un corrupted by the vicinity of the White and 
brandy, never forgives one who has destroyed the purity of 
his wife, and kills him on the first occasion. With the 
Hottentots, death again is the punishment for adultery. It 
is the custom among the Negroes of the Gold Coast for the 
culprit, as a general rule, to make an arrangement with the 
injured party, if it is a question of one of the women of the 
third order, who are merely concubines. But if it is a ques- 
tion of the great wife or the Fetish wife, then death, or at 



Moral Characters — Modesty, Honour. 469 

least the ruin of the culprit, will alone suffice to avenge the 
injury. 

Yet Negresses are not Penelopes. I do not for a moment 
think of challenging the unanimous evidence of travellers on 
this point, and the husbands, as we have just remarked, do 
not always invoke the rigour of the local code. What may 
we legitimately infer from this fact % Merely that the 
customs and the law of these races are at variance. But is 
it not often so amongst ourselves. Is adultery practised with 
impunity only among Negroes ? Do complaisant husbands 
exist only among Australians ? 

IV. Respect for human life is universal. The murderer is 
everywhere punished. But, amongst ourselves, murder sup- 
poses certain conditions. In spite of the law, he who kills his 
adversary in a fair duel is regarded by no one as a murderer ; 
he who kills or causes the death of a great number of enemies 
in pitched battle is a hero. 

With the savage the formula is still more elastic. As I 
have just remarked, he regards a stranger in almost every 
case as an enemy, and to kill him is no crime ; it is often 
a title of honour. Moreover, among the greater number of 
savage or barbarous peoples, blood demands blood, and for 
vengeance to be complete, it is not necessary that the true 
culprit should be overtaken. Every individual of the same 
family, tribe, or nation, can, and must pay for his crime if 
occasion offers. When Takouri treacherously massacred 
Captain Marion du Fresne and his sixteen sailors, he only 
obeyed the laws of his country. He had avenged his relative 
Nagui Noui, treacherously carried off three years previously 
by Surville, who wished to punish the theft of a canoe. In 
this manner many Europeans have fallen victims to the 
misdeeds of their countrymen, and certain peoples have 
acquired an unmerited reputation for ferocity. 

But let us remember that the Scotch and the Corsicans 
scarcely acted differently in their vendetta. With them, as 
with the Red-Skin, the Maori, and the Fijian, the blood of 
every member of the family or clan might atone for the 



470 The Human Species. 

blood spilt by another. Again, that which we now call 
"wilful 'murder, was no more considered by the European as 
an act of cowardice or treason than it is by the savage. Let 
us remember, moreover, that in the Middle Ages, chiefs 
occupying the highest positions in European society, did not 
hesitate to act in this manner ; let us remember that the 
commanders of our ships, when punishing savages for some 
attack, bombard and burn the first villages that they meet 
without any scruple, although they may be almost sure that 
many innocent will pay for the guilty ; and perhaps we shall 
be less severe. 

As to a want of respect for human life, the white European 
race cannot reproach the most barbarous. Let us look back 
upon our own history, and recall some of those wars, those 
pages written in letters of blood in our own annals. Let us 
not, above all, forget our conduct towards our inferior 
brethren ; the depopulation which marks every step through 
the world ; the massacres committed in cold blood, and often 
for amusement ; the man -hunts organized after the manner 
of stag-hunts ; the extermination of entire populations to 
make room for European colonies, and we shall be forced to 
acknowledge that if respect for human life is a moral and 
universal law, no race has violated it oftener, or in a more 
terrible manner than our own. 

V. Modesty and sense of honour are undoubtedly two of 
the principal manifestations of self-respect. Neither the one 
nor the other are wanting among savage peoples. But the 
former, especially, often shows itself in customs and practices 
widely opposed to our own, or bearing no resemblance what- 
ever to them. This has given rise to many misconceptions, 
such as that which, among certain Polynesians, has been 
considered as a refinement of immodest sensuality, what in 
their opinion is only an act of elementary modesty. 

I might multiply examples of this nature, but for what 
purpose % Is it not the same in matters of politeness ? We 
rise and uncover the head before a stranger or a superior ; in 
a similar case the Turk remains covered, and the Polynesian 



Moral Characters — Honour. 471 

sits down. Though differing so entirely in form, are they 
not inspired by the same sentiments ? Is not the faculty by 
which they are called into play everywhere the same ? 

It is the same also with the sense of honour. Here, how- 
ever, more than in any other case, we meet with conceptions 
remarkably in accordance with our own. The history of 
savage nations abounds with traits of warlike heroism, and 
nothing is more common than to see savages prefer torture 
and death to shame. The Algonquin and the Iroquois 
challenge their executioners to invent fresh tortures. The 
Kaffir chief asks as a favour to be thrown to the crocodiles 
rather than lose the feather, which to him represents the 
epaulette, and serve as a common soldier after having been 
an officer. The duel of the Australian is more logical than 
ours, and always in earnest. 

That which we call chivalrous generosity in speaking of 
Europeans, is by no means wanting in savages. In the 
struggles at Tahiti several officers owed their lives to this 
feeling. After peace had been concluded, Admiral Bruat 
asked a Tahitian chief, to whose fire he had been exposed 
for an hour while he bathed, why he had not fired : "I should 
have been dishonoured in the eyes of my people if I had 
killed such a chief as you, naked, and by surprise," replied 
the savage. Could the most civilized man have acted or 
spoken better ? 

We might quote various actions of Red-Skins and 
Australians, arising from sentiments of the same nature. 

VI. In conclusion, if it is sad to be forced to recognise 
"moral evil in races and in nations which have carried social 
civilization to the highest degree of perfection, it is consoling 
to acknowledge the good in the most backward tribes, and 
to find it there in its most elevated and refined form. The 
fundamental identity of human nature is nowhere displayed 
in a more striking manner. 

Does this assertion lead to the inference that all human 
groups are upon the same moral level ? By no means. From 
this, as from the intellectual point of view, they may hold a 
21 



472 The Human Species, 

higher or lower position of the scale, without any of them 
falling to zero. It is precisely this moral inequality which 
has for the anthropologist an interest at once scientific and 
practical. The very development of the faculty, the acts 
which it inspires, the institutions of which it is the founda- 
tion, present differences sufficiently great to make it possible 
to discover characters in this order of facts. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS. 



I. If scientific impartiality and calm judgment are neces- 
sary in the study of moral phenomena, they are much more 
indispensable when we have to account for facts depending 
upon religious feeling. Unfortunately this condition is too 
rarely fulfilled. Passion, with lamentable facility, becomes 
involved in whatever resembles a religious question. Many 
other causes, easy to mention, join passion in leading our 
judgment astray, and it is not difficult to explain how, under 
these several influences, it has been possible, honestly to 
ignore manifestations of religion in the more or less important 
divisions of mankind. 

The most frequent cause of error to which I feel myself 
bound to call attention, has its origin in the high opinion 
which the European has of himself, in the habitual contempt 
which is the most striking feature of his relation with other 
populations, and especially to those which, with greater or 
less reason, he treats as barbarians or savages. For example, 
a traveller who, as a general rule, speaks the language of 
the country very badly, interrogates a few individuals upon 
the delicate questions of the Deity, future life, etc., and his 
interlocutors, not understanding him, make a few signs of 
doubt or denial, which have no reference to the questions 
asked. The European in his turn mistakes their meaning. 
Having, in the first instance, merely regarded them as beings 
of the lowest type, incapable of any conception however 
trifling, he concludes without hesitation that these peoples 
have no idea either of God or of another life ; and his 



474 The Human Species. 

assertion, soon repeated, is at once accepted as true by readers 
who share his opinions about populations unacquainted with 
our civilization. The history of travel would furnish us with 
many examples of this fact. Kaffirs, Hottentots, etc., have 
often been spoken of as atheists, while we now know that 
this is by no means the case. 

Should the traveller, moreover, speak the language of the 
country with ease, he is still liable to fall into error. Reli- 
gious belief forms part of the most hidden depths of our 
nature ; the savage does not willingly expose his heart to a 
stranger whom he fears, whose superiority he feels, arid 
whom he has often seen ready to ignore or ridicule what he 
has always regarded as most worthy of veneration. The 
difficulty which a Parisian experiences in France in under- 
standing the superstitions of the Basque sailor, or of the 
Bas-Breton peasant, should make him able to appreciate 
those which he would find in giving an explanation of similar 
subjects in connection with Kaffirs or Australians. Campbell 
had great trouble in obtaining from Makoum the avowal 
that the Bosjesman admitted the existence of a male god and 
of a female god, of a good and evil principle. He left many 
other, and much more important discoveries to be made by 
MM. Arbousset and Daumas. Wallis, after a month's inti- 
macy with the Tahitians, declared that they possessed no 
form of worship, whilst it entered, so to speak, into their most 
trivial actions. He had seen nothing beyond a cemetery in 
the Morai, those venerated temples, of which no woman 
might even touch the sacred ground. 

The lively faith of a missionary is, again, often a cause of 
error. Whatever the Christian communion may be to which 
he belongs, he generally arrives in the midst of the people 
whom he wishes to convert, with a hatred of their objects of 
belief, which are to him works of the devil. Too often he 
neither seeks to account for them, nor even to become 
acquainted with them ; his sole endeavour is to destroy them. 
I could here mention one of these too zealous apostles, who 
sees nothing in the Brahminical religion but the utmost bar- 



Religious Characters. 475 

barism united with the utmost absurdity. It is clear that 
the much more rudimentary belief of a Kaffir or of an 
Australian could not be a religion in the opinion of such 
a judge as this. He expresses and publishes his ideas, and 
another name is added to the list of atheist populations. 

Fortunately amongst lay Europeans there are some who, 
permanently settled in the midst of these populations, 
become initiated into their customs and manners, so as to 
understand them and to fathom mysteries, which would by 
others be passed over on account of offensive or curious forms. 
Among missionaries there are some who, more indulgent, 
because they are more enlightened, can recognise the reli- 
gious conception, however feeble it may be, or however it 
may have been transformed. Little by little the light has 
appeared, and the result has been that Australians, Melane- 
sians, Bosjesmans, Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Bechuanas, have, 
in their turn, been withdrawn from the list of atheist nations 
and recognised as religious. 

II. Can the justice of this conclusion be denied ? Can 
anyone refuse to allow a religion, properly so called, to these 
peoples, to recognise as true divinities beings who receive a 
tribute of affection or terror, homage and prayers on the part 
of populations, who either fear or trust in them ? It is pos- 
sible. Here again our European pride seems to me to have 
often led to false conclusions. Believers or unbelievers, 
freethinkers or zealous Christians, savants and philosophers 
have been too much under the influence of the idea of the 
Deity as conceived by our most cultivated classes. Often 
when this idea is even slightly degraded or modified, they 
no longer acknowledge its existence ; when the conclusions 
drawn from it upon the origin, nature, and destiny of man or 
of the universe, differ even slightly from those which they 
admit themselves, or have been accustomed to hear, they 
refuse them the name of religion. 

I can only explain in this manner the judgment passed 
upon a very considerable portion of mankind by a number 
of savants and eminent thinkers, amongst whom we must 



476 The Human Species. 

reckon the illustrious Orientalist Burnouf. In his opinion 
Buddhism is true atheism. In a work which has been 
deservedly successful, M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire has sup- 
ported this view with incontestable talent and learning. He 
has, moreover, placed on an equality with Buddhist beliefs, 
and perhaps even below them, those which had preceded 
them among the Mongols, Chinese, and Japanese. Thus, in 
the opinion of this eminent writer, nearly all the yellow 
races, much more than the third of mankind, are atheists. 

But, in formulating this conclusion, the learned author 
of Buddah chiefly consulted his own reason and concep- 
tions. "Buddhists," he says, "may without any injustice 
be regarded as atheists. I do not mean that they profess 
atheism, that they glory in their incredulity with that 
boasting of which more than one example might be quoted 
amongst ourselves ; I only mean that these nations have 
not been able to rise in their noblest thoughts to the concep- 
tion of God." 

In these few lines the idea of the book and the cause of 
the disagreement which separates me from M. Barthelemy 
Saint-Hilaire is clearly evident. The Buddhists, who every- 
where give a place to gods in their legends, who have every- 
where raised temples consecrated to these deities, who fear 
and worship them, who have made prayer an institution, 
who admit the dogma of future life and of remuneration, 
have not formed that idea of God to which we have all more 
or less attained ; they are therefore atheists. This is 
evidently the prepossession under the influence of which 
this work has been written, which, however, should be read 
by all who are desirous of gaining correct impressions 
concerning some of the grave questions so hotly disputed at 
the present day. 

The savant who considered Buddhism as atheism would 
with still greater reason make the same estimate of the 
ancient beliefs of Japan, China, and Mongolia. Neverthe- 
less, there was in this case also a belief in numerous divinities, 
always subordinated to one supreme, uncreated and creating 



Religions Characters. 477 

God. In Japan, we are told by Siebolt, there were counted 
no less than seven celestial gods, and eight million kamis, or 
spirits, of which 492 were superior gods. The inferior 
Kamis, to the number of 2640, were deified men. In China, 
the aim of the reform of Lao-tseu and of Khoung-tseu was, 
partly, the destruction of idolatry, and idolatry is not 
atheism. The populations of northern and central Asia 
have in almost all cases been accused by travellers especially 
of superstition, and not of atheism. They also have their 
idols. The case is similar with all northern populations. 
In the sacred island of Waygatz, near to the straits of the 
same name, the missionaries burnt, in 1827, 420 images 
collected upon the promontory of Haye-Salye alone. Through- 
out this vast area, the inhabitants believed, or still believe, 
in spirits dwelling in rocks, trees, mountains, or the celestial 
bodies, and offered to them an interested homage. 

Still, however, there was an universal belief in a Supreme 
God, who had created these very spirits, and was the 
Preserver of all living things. The Lapps and Samoyedes 
had, or still have on this point, the same conceptions as the 
ancient Chinese. Their Jubmel, and their Num answer 
exactly to the Chang-ti of Khoung-tseu himself, while 
popular idioms show that they regard him as the first dis- 
penser of all good. Num tad (may Num grant), and Num 
arka (thanks be to Num), are apparently of frequent occur- 
rence in the language of the Samoyedes. This belief in a 
Supreme God and in secondary spirits, of vast number, but 
still presenting a kind of hierarchy, is a very ancient one in 
China, for we find the emperor Chun 2225 years before our era 
" offering sacrifices to the Supreme Sovereign of Heaven, and 
the usual ceremonies to the six great spirits, as those usually 
offered to mountains, streams, and spirits in general." 

Possessing beliefs of this kind, attested and sanctioned 
by public acts, can they be regarded as atheists ? If so, 
we must at least allow that this is a very different atheism 
from that which has been professed, and is still professed, by 
certain European schools of philosophy. 



478 The Human Species, 

III. I might make similar observations upon the subject 
of the opinions published by Sir John Lubbock in the two 
works which have gained for him in anthropology a reputa- 
tion equal to that which he already enjoyed as a naturalist. 
" It is difficult/' he says, " to suppose that savages so rude as 
not to be able to count their own fingers, should have 
acquired intellectual conceptions sufficiently advanced to 
possess a system of belief worthy of the name of religion." 

Leaving on one side what the author here says about 
numeration, which rests, I think, upon a false assumption, do 
not these words, " worthy of the name of religion," show us 
that, like M. B. Saint-Hilaire, Sir John Lubbock takes his 
own conceptions in religious matters as a criterion of those 
of savages ? 

In the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, atheism is not " the 
negation of the existence of a God, but the absence of definite 
ideas upon this subject." Here, like M. Barthelemy Saint- 
Hilaire, the English savant gives to the word atheism a very 
different sense to that which it has held hitherto. Moreover, 
he quotes elsewhere without comment several passages, the 
sense of which clearly implies a negation of all divinity, and 
sometimes himself makes use of expressions which seem to 
prove that such is his conviction, at least with regard to 
certain savages. Thus, the testimony which he makes use 
of, and his own words, are often employed in the support 
of the opinion which denies any religion to certain human 
groups. 

The choice, moreover, of the quotations in question seems 
to me liable to a serious objection. When the writers, 
against whom I am now arguing, have to choose between 
two evidences, the one attesting, the other denying the exis- 
tence of religious belief in a population,, it is always the 
latter which they seem to think should be accepted. More 
often than not, they do not even mention the contrary 
evidences, however definite, however authentic they may be. 

Now it is evidently much easier not to see than to discover 
that which may be in so many ways rendered inappreciable 



Religious Characters — Atheism. 479 

to our eyes. When a traveller states that he has proved the 
existence of religious sentiments in a population, which by 
others had been declared to be destitute of them, when he 
gives precise details upon such a delicate question, he has 
unquestionably at least probability in his favour. I see 
nothing to authorize this rejection of positive evidence and 
unconditional acceptance of negative evidence. This, how- 
ever, is too often the case. 

I might justify this imputation by taking, one by one, 
almost all the examples of so-called atheist populations 
pointed out by different authors. I shall confine myself to 
some of the most striking. 

With reference to the Americans, Robertson is quoted, who 
states that several tribes have been discovered in America 
possessing no conception of a Supreme Being and no re- 
ligious ceremonies. No mention is made of the information, 
for which we are indebted to D'Orbigny, although it is very 
precise. The author of l* Homme Americain deserves this 
neglect the less, since he directly contradicts the opinions 
held upon this subject by several writers, and by Robertson 
himself. " Although several authors," he says, " have denied 
all religion to certain Americans, it is evident in our opinion 
that all the nations, even the most barbarous, possessed one 
of some kind." D'Orbigny develops this opinion by giving 
details of the dogmas accepted by all the races of South 
America, and he proves in all the belief in another life, as 
attested by their funeral ceremonies. Is not this of more 
importance than the simple negative assertion borrowed 
from a traveller ? 

It may be objected that D'Orbigny spoke only of the 
tribes of South America, and that the atheist populations 
must be sought in the northern portion of this continent. 
The Californians have, in fact, been quoted, upon the autho- 
rity of P. Baegert, as having neither government, religion, 
idols, temples, nor form of worship. But nothing is said of 
the facts observed by M. de Mofras, which directly contradict 
this assertion. The Californians, this traveller tells us, 



480 The Human Species, 

believe in a superior God. " This God has had neither 
father nor mother. His origin is entirely unknown ; they 
believe that He is omnipresent ; that He sees everything, 
even in the middle of the darkest nights ; that He is in- 
visible to all eyes ; that He is the Friend of the good, and 
that He punishes the wicked." The Californians build oval 
temples, or, perhaps, rather chapels, from 10 to 12 ft. in 
diameter, which are regarded as asylums, even in case of 
murder. Clearly, the Californians must be erased from the 
list of atheist populations, the conception which they have 
formed of their superior God being, on the contrary, a 
remarkably elevated one. In this respect these poor savages 
greatly surpassed the Greeks and Romans. 

The Californians rank amongst those human tribes which 
are least elevated in the social scale ; but there are some 
which are considered to stand far below them, the Mincopies, 
for example. Some writers, adopting the ideas of Mouat, 
regard them as atheists. They make no mention of the 
evidence of Major Michael Symes and Mr. Day. The 
former relates the information which he received from 
Captain Stocker, who lived for several years in the midst 
of these islanders ; the latter relates what he saw. From 
their combined evidence, it appears that the Mincopies 
worshipped the sun as the primal source of all good ; the 
moon as a secondary power ; the genii of the woods, 
rivers, and mountains as agents of the rirst divinities. They 
believe that a malevolent spirit raises tempests, and they 
sometimes endeavour to pacify it by songs, sometimes 
menace it with their arrows. These Mincopies believe in 
another life, and keep a lighted fire under the platform 
which bears the corpse of a chief to appease his poiverful 
spirit. 

The evidence of Le Vaillant is accepted with reference to 
the absence of all religion in the Hottentots. No notice is 
taken of the contrary opinion held by Kolben, the accuracy 
and truth of which, though formerly doubted, are now placed 
above suspicion by the inquiry instituted by Walkenaer. 



Religious Characters — Atheism. 481 

Kolben, moreover, only confirmed the statements of his 
predecessors Saar, Tachard, and Boeving. He had also the 
advantage of having studied the aborigines before they were 
subdued and dispersed by the Europeans. Now Kolben 
tells us that the Hottentots believed in a God, the creator of 
all existing things, doing no harm to anyone, and living 
beyond the moon. They called Him Gounja Ticquoa, that 
is to say, God of Gods. They also recognized an evil divinity, 
called Touquoa. The moon was, in their opinion, an inferior 
gounja. They believed, moreover, in another life, for they were 
afraid of ghosts, and rendered a sort of adoration to their 
great men, by dedicating to them a field, a mountain, or a 
river, to which they made, in passing, some sign of respect. 
These details, given by the old Prussian traveller, agree with 
those which Campbell received from the lips of a Hottentot 
chief. 

Burchell, it is stated, could discover no religion in the 
Bachapine Kaffirs. Nevertheless, and Lubbock allows it 
himself elsewhere, we find in the writings of this traveller 
that the Bachapines believed in a malevolent being called 
Mouliimo, to whom they attribute everything of an un- 
pleasant nature which happens to them. To defend them- 
selves against him they cover themselves with amulets, and 
they hold many other superstitions. It is evident that 
Burchell was not acquainted with everything which the 
Bachapines believed, either because he did not attach great 
importance to the investigation, or because he was prevented 
by the difficulty which Kolben has mentioned, and which I 
have pointed out above. 

Thus the Bachapines believe in a superior, but evil being, 
in a Jcind of devil. It would be very singular if they did 
not believe in a species of God. Schweinfurth believes he 
has discovered something similar among the Bongos ; but he 
himself insists several times upon the difficulty of determin- 
ing exactly what to believe in questions of this kind. Let 
us admit, however, that this may be true in the case of these 
Negroes as also iu that of the Bachapines. We can only 



482 The Human Species. 

regard it as an accidental and local phenomenon, and in no 
way as a character of race. I shall return later to the 
Negroes ; I will now only add a few words with reference to 
the Bachapines. 

This population is only a portion of the Bechuana Kaffir 
race. Now, thanks to Livingstone, M. Cazalis, and others, 
we have, upon the subject of the religious beliefs of these 
tribes in general, details which are very minute and of incon- 
testable authenticity. The Basutos have their legends, their 
cosmogony, and their rudimentary mythology. They admit 
the existence of a being who destroys by thunder, they give 
to him the name of Morena, literally, Intelligent Being who 
is above, they have, moreover, Molimos, a kind of household 
gods, to whom they offer prayers and sacrifices, and in whose 
honour they purify themselves ; they believe in another life, 
in another world situated in the centre of. the earth, which 
they call the abyss which is never filled. The Bechuanas 
believe so strongly in ghosts that the fierce Dingan dare not 
go out in the evening, for fear of meeting the spectre of 
Chaka, whom he had assassinated. 

IV. The result of my investigations is exactly the opposite 
of that to which Sir John Lubbock and M. Saint-Hilaire have 
arrived. Obliged, in my course of instruction, to review all 
human races, I have sought atheism in the lowest as well as 
in the highest. I have nowhere met with it, except in 
individuals, or in more or less limited schools, such as those 
which existed in Europe in the last century, or which may 
still be seen at the present day. 

Can it be that analogous facts have occurred elsewhere, 
and that some American tribes, some Polynesian or Melane- 
sian populations, some hordes of Bedouins may have entirely 
lost the conception of the divinity and another life ? It is 
certainly possible that it may be so. But side by side with 
these tribes dwell other tribes, other populations, of precisely 
the same race, which still possess a religious faith; Such 
is indeed the result of the examples quoted by Lubbock. 

This is the great point. We nowhere meet with atheism 



Religious Characters — Atheism. 483 

except in an erratic condition. In every place, and at all 
times, the mass of populations have escaped it ; we nowhere 
find either a great human race, or even a division however 
unimportant of that race, professing atheism. 

Such is the result of an inquiry which I am justified in 
calling conscientious, and which commenced before I assumed 
the anthropological professorship. It is true that in these 
researches I have proceeded and have formed my conclusions, 
not as a thinker, a believer, or as a philosopher, who are 
all more or less under the influence of an ideal which they 
accept or oppose, but exclusively as a naturalist, whose chief 
aim is to seek for and state facts. 

In the scientific study of religions we must avoid acting 
in the manner of the physiologist, who, having experimented 
upon the vertebrata alone, refused to recognise the charac- 
teristic functions of animal life in the lower animals, because 
they were in those cases simpler and more obscure. Here, 
more perhaps than elsewhere, we should imitate modern 
naturalists, who have traced the fundamental functions even 
in the lowest molluscs and zoophytes, where all special organi- 
zation is often wanting. 

The physiologist does not deny the existence of a pheno- 
menon because it occurs in a place, and by methods, different 
to those to which he is accustomed. In almost all animals, 
even to the lowest, chymification takes place in the interior, 
of the body. In the Physalia the same physiological act is 
performed externally, by the numerous appendages which 
serve for both arms and mouth to these singular zoophytes. 
In spite of the strangeness of the process, the function has 
neither disappeared, nor changed its nature in the eyes of 
the scientific man. 

The naturalist who studies the history of man, that is to 
say, the anthropologist, should neither act nor judge other- 
wise. However simple or incomplete, however naive and 
childish, however absurd it may be, a belief should not lose 
its character in his eyes, if it has any connection with that 
element which is common and essential to all religions. 



484 The Human Species. 

Now, whatever the dogmas and doctrines of the latter may 
be, we may accept as a general formula, which embraces them 
all, the two following points : a belief in beings superior to 
man and capable of exercising a good or evil influence upon 
his destiny ; and the conviction that the existence of man is 
not limited to the present life, but that there remains for 
him a future beyond the grave. 

Every people, every man, believing these two things, is 
religions, and observation shows more and more clearly every 
day the universality of this character. 

Like intelligence and morality, religious feeling has, more- 
over, its several degrees and manifestations. To seek for these 
manifestations, to determine their nature and intensity in the 
various human groups, must be the task of the anthropolo- 
gist. In order to be faithful to the modern method, he must 
neglect nothing. Sometimes the most rudimentary religion 
will have for him a greater interest than one which is 
fully developed, because it exposes more clearly the primary 
religious elements. In their progressive development, in the 
harmony or discord existing between this development and 
that of the intelligence or morality, he will find many charac- 
teristic features suitable for distinguishing races, and some- 
times their subdivisions. 

V. The point of view taken by the naturalist differs, then, 
in certain respects, from that which has hitherto been 
adopted by the greater number of eminent men, who have 
endeavoured to' establish the Science of religions. Even 
M. Emile Burnouf, who has so clearly characterised this new 
science, who has shown so admirably in what respects it 
differs from theology, who has so justly insisted upon the 
necessity of enlarging the area of studies of this kind, and of 
no longer confining ourselves to the beliefs of ancient and 
modern Europeans, seems to me to have yielded to the 
prejudices which he opposes. 

In fact, this author divides religions into great and small. 
The former in his opinion are : Christianity, Judaism, 
Mahomedanism, Brahman ism, and Buddhism. He turns his 



Religious Characters — Small Religions. 485 

attention to these only, leaving all others in the background. 
M. Burnouf may, it is true, argue from the relative number 
of adherents. 

The following are, in fact, from the latest researches of 
M. Hubner, the general religious statistics of the globe. 



f Catholics . . . 
Christians, J Protestants . . . 
400 millions. J Greeks • • 

( Various sects . • 
( Buddhists . . . 
\ Brahminists . . . 
Non- Christians, J Mahomedans . . 

992^ millions. A Israelites .... 
I Known different religions 
( Unknown religions . 

Total 



200 millions. 

110 „ 

80 

10 „ 
500 „ 
150 

80 „ 

240 
16 



The same author gives about one thousand as the number 
of the religions or sects into which mankind is divided. The 
majority is unquestionably greatly on the side of the small 
religions, which present, at least in certain resj)ects, a variety 
of conception equal, if not superior, to all that has been 
observed in the great. M. Burnouf acts, therefore, like the 
naturalist, who would form his judgment upon the animal 
kingdom from the vertebrata alone, and would neglect all 
the rest, that is to say, three-fourths of the fundamental, and 
a very considerable number of the secondary types. 

Without even mentioning Christianity, the great religions 
of M. Burnouf are doubtless of interest to us in many 
respects, on account of the relations which many of them 
present with the beliefs of almost ail Europeans, and also 
from the historical, social, and political importance of the 
nations by whom they are professed. But considerations of 
this kind are far from being everything in science. Mam- 
mifers are of much more use to us than worms or zoophytes : 
yet the zoologist takes as much interest in the latter as in 
the former ; and it becomes more evident every day how 
useful, and often how necessary the study of these simplified 



486 The Human Species. 

organisms is, for the better understanding of the more 
complex organisms of higher animals. 

The examination of the small religions will render an 
analogous service to the science of the great religions. It 
will be, perhaps, amongst the former that w T e shall be forced 
to seek the origin of those beliefs which now include so 
many millions of men ; under one form or another, we shall, 
doubtless, often meet with traces of them side by side with, 
or even in the midst of the most fully developed religions, 
and those which are apparently most widely separated 
from them. Upon these two points our opinions will 
not I think clash with those of M. Burnouf and Sir John 
Lubbock. 

VI. The latter, in his Origins of Civilization, has, in fact, 
endeavoured to trace the gradual development of religion in 
the inferior human races. Unfortunately, he seems to me to 
have, as a rule, undervalued the greater number of these 
conceptions, and to have ignored the remarkably elevated 
character which many of them exhibit. This alone may 
have led him to consider religion as proportional to civiliza- 
tion, and developing only with the latter. I cannot share 
this view ; and the disagreement between Lubbock and 
myself is also due in a great measure to the importance 
which I have attached to certain evidences which seem to 
have escaped the notice of the English savant. A few 
examples will justify these observations. 

Of all the peoples, concerning whose beliefs we possess 
an almost sufficient amount of information, the Australians 
certainly take the first place. Upon this point I am entirely 
agreed with Sir John Lubbock. But I cannot hold with 
him, that these populations do not believe in a god of any 
kind ; that they never offer prayers ; that they have no form 
of worship at all. 

In support of his opinion my eminent colleague quotes 
Eyre, Collins, and MacGillivray ; but he forgets Cunningham, 
Dawson, Wilkes, Salvado, and Stanbridge. In comparing the 
information obtained by these travellers in different parts of 



Religions Characters — Australians, 487 

New Holland, we everywhere observe a similar foundation in 
the beliefs, which well deserve to be termed religious. 

The Australians admit a good principle, called, according 
to the locality, Coyan, Motogon, Pupperimbul, who is some- 
times spoken of by them as a kind of giant, at others as a 
kind of spirit. Coyan is beneficent, and regards the recovery 
of lost children as almost his special duty. To obtain his 
favour, darts are offered to him. If the child is not found, it 
is supposed that he is angry. In New-Nursie, Motogon is 
the creator. He had only to cry : Earth, appear ! Water, 
appear ! aDd to breathe in order to give birth to all things 
that exist. Without being so precise, the natives of Tyrril 
Lake ascribe the creation of the sun to Pupperimbul, who 
belonged to a class of beings resembling men, but who had 
been transported to heaven before the appearance of the 
present race. In south-east Australia, Coyan watches over 
the evil principle, called Potoyan, Wandong, Cienga, who 
roams about at night to devour men as well as children, and 
against whom they protect themselves by fire. The moon, 
again, is, in the opinion of the Australians, a malevolent 
being, whose evil influence is counteracted by the sun. 
Several good and evil genii, Balnmbals and Wanguls, com- 
plete this rudimentary mythology, which has also its fabulous 
monsters, its great serpents hidden in deep rivers, etc. The 
Australians believe, moreover, in a kind of immortality of the 
soul, which passes successively from one body to another. 
But before finding a new abode, the spirits of the dead 
wander for a certain length of time in the forests, and the 
natives very often affirm that they have been seen or heard. 

True, these are not very noble beliefs. There is, how- 
ever, here something of a very different nature from what 
Sir John Lubbock's view of the matter would lead us to 
expect. The idea of creation by the word and breath of a 
powerful being is a noble conception, and appears distinctly 
in several tribes : oblations and prayer have been proved in 
others. In all we observe the germ of that belief in dual- 
ism, that antagonism of benevolent and malevolent super- 



488 The Human Species, 

human powers, which is found in the greatest religions, and 
which is the basis even of Christianity. As to the belief in 
another life, no one has of late, I believe, denied the possession 
of it to the Australians. 

In treating of the religion of the Polynesians, Lubbock 
quotes chiefly Mariner, Williams, and Sir George Grey. 
These authorities are unexceptional as regards their state- 
ment upon what they have discovered. But their silence 
upon certain points does not justify us in concluding that 
there are real gaps in those cases. Other travellers have 
gone much further than they went, known what they were 
ignorant of, and have imparted the knowledge to us. 
Moerenhout was the first, I believe, to publish original docu- 
ments upon the most ancient Tahitian traditions. Others 
followed ; and, thanks to favourable circumstances, I have 
been able to profit by these researches. In the work which 
I published eight years before that of Lubbock, I reviewed 
and discussed the principal documents for which we are 
indebted to Captain Lavaud, General Bibourt, the missionary 
Orsmond, M. Gaussin, and others. All these documents, 
obtained from chiefs belonging to the most ancient families 
and well versed in the traditions of their ancestors, have the 
appearance of incontestable authenticity, and throw an en- 
tirely fresh light upon the early history of religion, at least 
in Tahiti. I believe I have defined with sufficient clearness 
what these religious beliefs were, and established beyond a 
doubt that, side by side with notions arising entirely from 
superstition, the Tahitians had attained conceptions remark- 
able for their purity and elevation. 

Let us first prove that in the island where Wallis declared 
he had not been able to discover the least trace of religious 
worship, this worship was, on the contrary, mixed up with 
the most trivial acts of life. It was even productive of 
melancholy consequences. Formalism reigned supreme. 
Trusting in his religious observances, in the prayers of his 
priests, and in the indulgence of his gods, the Tahitian 
thought himself at liberty to do almost anything. He 



Religious Characters — Polynesians. 489 

combined the strongest and most simple faith with manners 
remarkable for their violence and licentiousness. But does 
not all Europe of the Middle Ages, and, even at the present 
time, do not many provinces, which in other respects are by no 
means behind the age, present phenomena of a similar 
nature. 

Yet the Tahitians believed in another life, in rewards and 
punishment after death. Their paradise, of which they gave 
an enticing description, was reserved for the chiefs, and for 
those who had made sufficient offerings to the gods, that is 
to say, to the priests. Was not, and is not this still, the 
object of pious donations? 

The souls of the remainder, whose life had been regular, 
went at once into Po, into obscurity, a kind of limbo, where 
there seems to have been neither pain nor pleasure of a very 
decided nature. But guilty souls were condemned to under- 
go a certain number of times, a scratching of the flesh upon 
every bone. Their sins expiated, they too were admitted 
into Po. The Tahitians thus admit a kind of purgatory and 
no hell. It should also be observed that the punishment 
inflicted upon the guilty supposes a kind of materiality of 
the soul. But is not this also the case with those torments 
which nearly all our Christian populations still believe to be 
reserved for the sinner cast into the flames of hell. 

We find in the pantheon of the Tahitians a hierarchy 
equal to, but much exceeding in number that of the Greeks 
and Romans. At the lowest extremity of the scale we find 
innumerable Tiis, whose duty it was to preside in everyplace 
over the smallest actions, the smallest movements of the 
soul, even to the wishes of day and night Above the 
latter come the Oromotouas, who represented the domestic 
gods, the Lares and Manes of the ancients. The inferior 
Atouas, dwelling upon the earth, inhabiting rivers, woods, 
valleys, and mountains, answer very fairly to the Fauns, 
Sylvans, Dryads, Oreads, &c. Moreover, it is from among 
the divinities of this class that the various professions choose 
their patrons. The singers, chorographers, and doctors had 



49° Tlie Human Species, 

four, sailors twelve, and agriculturists thirteen. The gods of 
the first rank were Atouas properly so called. They also 
were equally numerous. But nine of them, created (oriori) 
directly by Taaroa, before the formation of man, composed, 
correctly speaking, the divine family. 

Finally, above all those divinities, stood the Supreme God. 
There can be no doubt as to the conception which the 
Tahitians formed of the latter. Traditions, collected at dif- 
ferent times by different persons, and from equally different 
sources, agree perfectly upon this point. The song received 
by Moerenhout from the lips of a harepo began thus : " He 
was ; Taaroa was his name ; he existed in space ; no earth, 
no heaven, no men." The manuscript of General Ribourt 
describes him as to'ivi, having had no parents, and existing 
from time immemorial. The sacred song translated by 
M. Goussin begins with the following declaration . " Taaroa 
the great orderer, is the origin of the earth. Taaroa is toivi ; 
he has no father, no posterity." 

The Tahitians regarded this uncreated God, moreover, as 
almost a pure spirit, and he was undoubtedly so in the esti- 
mation of the more enlightened islanders. Certain traditions 
represent him with a body; but, says General Ribourt's 
manuscript, this body is invisible, and further it is merely, 
" a shell which is frequently renewed, and which the God loses, 
as a bird its feathers." In Moerenhout's song, it is he who 
changes himself into the universe ; but " the great and 
sacred universe is only the shell of Taaroa." In that of M. 
Gaussin, Taaroa raises his head out of his covering, which 
disappears and becomes the earth. In the magnificent 
dialogue, also translated by M. Gaussin, and in which Taaroa 
calls, so to speak, upon all the different parts of the universe, 
who in turn answer him, it is said : " The soul of Taaroa 
remained God." Unfortunately, after the creation was 
finished, this God seems to have reassumed his state of 
repose, and to have left to the inferior deities the government 
of this world. 

We see here, again, that as far as the first conception is 



Religions Characters — Red- Skins. 49 1 

concerned, we are far above the Zeus of the Greeks, or the 
Jupiter of the Romans. And yet who would dream of com- 
paring the Tahitian civilization with the civilization or the 
intellectual productions of the Greeks ? It is one of the many- 
facts which show the independence of the phenomena of the 
intelligence and those of the religious feeling. 

It is not in Tahiti alone that this elevated spiritualism has 
been observed, though concealed under very different appear- 
ances. The rude images, the toos placed in the morai have 
been regarded by almost all travellers as statues of atouas. 
They are, in reality, nothing more than tabernacles hollow 
within, and destined to receive different objects, oblations, 
etc. A priest of the Sandwich Islands told Byron that, when 
a child, it happened that he eat something which had been 
deposited in the sacred images. Surprised and reprimanded 
by his father, he excused himself by saying that he had 
found out by various experiments that these gods of wood 
neither saw nor heard. The old priest then said to him in a 
severe tone : " My son, the wood, it is true, neither sees nor 
hears ; but the spirit which is above sees and hears all, and 
punishes wicked actions." 

Do many among ourselves draw such a clear distinction 
betweeD the spirit and the tuood 1 

A remarkable feature of the- Tahitian religion is, that we 
find in it no trace of Manicheism. They have, in fact, only 
gods, and no devils. It is true that the priests spoke in the 
name of the Atouas, and that the sorcerers, hated and 
feared in Tahiti as elsewhere, addressed themselves solely to 
the Tiis. But the latter were not in any way considered as 
antagonistic to the Atouas. Moerenhout tells us that their 
images might be seen as guardians at the entrance of the 
morai and sacred enclosures. 

Although not so clearly defined as those of the Tahitians, 
the religious beliefs of the Algonquin and Mingwe Red- 
Skins are very superior in some respects. Their Great Spirit, 
the Michabou of the Algonquins, the Agrescoue of the 
Iroquois, is the Father of all existing things. To him alone 



49 2 The Human Species. 

true worship is rendered in smoking the sacred calumet 
towards the four points of the horizon and the zenith. The 
Creator of all that exists, he is not so disinterested in his 
work as Taaroa. He himself, or his messengers, watch over 
children, and direct the events of the world. Again, it is to 
him, before all others, that the Red-Skin addressed his 
prayers when he asks, and his thanks when he has gained 
his demands. I might here multiply examples and quota- 
tions. I shall confine myself to reproducing in part the song 
of the Lenapes on the eve of their departure for war, as it 
has been preserved for us by Heckewelder. It is a national 
song, and of itself refutes many strange assertions frequently 
made with regard to the populations who once occupied the 
territory of the United States. 

" Oh, poor me — who am just about to depart to fight the 
enemy — and know not if I shall return — to enjoy the em- 
braces of my children and wife." 

" Oh, poor creature — who cannot order his own life — who 
has no power over his own body — but who tries to do his 
duty— for the happiness of his nation." 

" Oh, thou Great Spirit above — take pity upon my 
children — and upon my wife — keep them from sorrowing 
on my account — grant that I may succeed in my enterprise 
— that I may kill my enemy— and bring back trophies of 
war." 

'■* Give me strength and courage to fight my enemy — grant 
that I may return and see my children again — see my wife 
and my relations — have pity upon me and preserve my life — 
and I will offer to thee a sacrifice." 

It is true that, after the Great Spirit, we find the Red- 
Skins believing in an immense number of Manitous, one of 
whom, inhabiting the centre of the earth, is a kind of demon. 
But these beings, whether good or evil, although possessing 
an influence over the destiny of man, have nothing of the 
divine character. They are nothing more than a kind of 
genii, fairies, ogres, etc., more or less resembling those men- 
tioned in Oriental tales, and all absolutely dependent upon 



Religious Characters — Negroes, 493 

the Great Spirit. The latter alone is omnipotent, while the 
evil spirit is weak and his power is limited. 

The belief in another life was, moreover, universal amongst 
these populations. Their ideas upon the other world, the 
transmigration of souls, the multiplicity of existences were 
vague enough ; but in several legends, collected either by the 
first travellers, or in the present century by Schoolcraft, we 
find, given in the most explicit manner, the doctrine of 
recompense promised to the good, and the torments which 
await the wicked. 

The Algonquins and Mingwes deserve to be regarded as 
monotheists as much as any other people we can mention, 
much more so than the Arabs before Mahomet. There is, 
moreover, no reason to think that these spiritual beliefs were 
due to the exceptional intelligence of an isolated individual 
who played the part of prophet after the manner of Mahomet. 
They have all the characters of a spontaneous manifestation 
of the instincts of the race itself. Now this fact is the more 
remarkable, as these Red-Skins, almost exclusively hunters, 
had scarcely advanced beyond the lowest stages of the social 
scale. 

The Negroes of Guinea, much superior to the Algonquins 
and Mingwes, from a civilized point of view, are far inferior 
to them in religion. Still, to speak only of their fetishism, 
would be doing them a great injustice. This is, in reality, 
only a form of superstition more or less intimately associated 
with a basis of far nobler beliefs. Here, again, the greater 
number of observers have stopped at what was imme- 
diately presented to the eye ; others, however, have for- 
tunately been found who have locked beneath these first 
appearances. 

Numerous evidences, too unanimous to admit of doubt, 
prove that from Cape Verd to Cape Lopez the inhabitants 
believe in a Supreme God, who has created all existing things. 
The natives of Dahomey hold that this God is himself subject 
to a more elevated being, who, say these Negroes, is perhaps 
the God of the Whites. In most cases, it is true, this supreme 



494 The Human Species, 

Deity is regarded as governing the universe through the 
agency of his ministers ; but often, also, direct intervention 
is attributed to him. Petitions, thanks, and prayers, are 
then addressed to him, with the formula of some of which we 
are acquainted. In that which D'Avezac received from the 
lips of Oche Fecoue, the Yebous request Obba-el-Orum (King 
of Heaven) to preserve them from illness and death. They 
add : " Orissa (God) give me prosperity and wisdom." 

We find that almost all the natives of Guinea, besides their 
good God, had their evil spirit, also very powerful. Oblations 
are offered to appease him. The Negroes often think that 
they see or hear him in the night. We know too well, how- 
ever, that the shores of Guinea are not the only place where 
such visions have been seen in imagination. 

Then come the inferior gods, very numerous, and sometimes 
arranged in a hierarchy. It is they who are sent into Fetishes 
to watch over and protect man. The Fetish, according to the 
evidence of devout priests and Negroes, is not the God him- 
self, but only the abode of the God. 

The natives of Guinea all believe in another life, but have 
very different ideas upon this subject. In general they 
regard it as almost similar to the present. Some have a 
confused idea of metempsychosis, or think they are born again 
in a child. The Issinois believe in the immortality of the 
soul, which, on leaving this earth, is born again in another 
world, situated in the centre of the globe, and vice versa. 
This is almost the alternating life, as conceived by Hyp- 
polyte Renaud, a distinguished artillery officer, and one of 
those thinkers who have felt the want of an explanation of 
the destiny of man. 

The idea of retribution is clearly defined by many Guinean 
tribes. In the opinion of many, the wise and the intelli- 
gent become the messengers of the gods ; the wicked are 
drowned in passing a certain stream, and die for ever or 
become demons. Others hold that the souls of those who 
have led evil lives go to the evil spirit, but can be redeemed 
by oblations offered to the gods. Here, then, we find the 



Religious Characters — Superstitiojis. 495 

Negro possessing the idea of purgatory and of redemption, 
together with that of hell. 

VII. I think I have said enough thoroughly to establish a 
fact independent of all hypothesis, and which seems to me to 
be of serious importance. It is that we often find ideas of an ex- 
tremely elevated nature, and resembling in a singular manner 
those which distinguish the great religions, existing in the 
small, though obscured by other notions of an inferior nature. 
Again, that we must almost everywhere, probably every- 
where, distinguish religion from superstition. But before 
we can, in this case, recognise the gold in the midst of the 
surrounding dross, time is required, serious study, and a mind 
entirely free from prejudice. 

I grant that religion and superstition are often, as it were, 
fused into the creeds of certain races, so that the priest and 
the sorcerer are confounded in one person. But this is not 
always the case ; and, even where the connection forms an 
apparent confusion, we should unquestionably endeavour to 
distinguish the two elements. Now this task has been too 
often neglected in dealing with inferior races. Here again, 
I remark at each step the prejudicial influence of European 
pride. The most careless writer would certainly not connect 
with Christianity, as it is understood at the present day in 
France, the dismal or ludicrous tales collected in the country 
districts by Villemarque, Souvestre, and others. He would 
place them, with all their accompanying practices, in what 
may be called the popular mythology. Should not also the 
man of science make a similar distinction, when trying to 
form a true estimation of the religion, properly so called, of 
barbarous or savage nations ? 

To those who ask how Fetishism came to be implanted in 
Guinea side by side with the conception of a Supreme Being, 
the creator and governor of all that exists? how northern 
populations could reconcile Shamanism with the belief in 
that God of whom Ghengis Khan had formed such a great 
and elevated idea ? I ask again how the strangest supersti- 
tions came to be accepted in former times by all Christian 
22 



496 The Human Species. 

sects ? how it is that they still exist amongst us ? True, in 
our enlightened classes, neither Protestant nor Catholic 
would enter upon a course of sorcery, of which there were so 
many instances but two or three centuries ago, and which 
were so often followed by condemnation and capital punish- 
ment. In our more remote country districts, however, the 
belief in sorcery is as strong as it was universal in the Middle 
Ages. The newspapers inform us from time to time of 
actions, proving that, if left to themselves, these populations 
would willingly burn the unfortunate victims suspected of 
having told fortunes ; protect themselves against witchcraft, 
the evil eye, etc., these same populations have often had 
recourse to practices strongly resembling those signalized 
by travellers as the proof of inferiority in certain races. In 
reality, the amulets of our peasants are identical with the 
grisgris of the Negroes. 

In all these respects and in many others, all Aryan 
Christians have believed in that which we proudly reproach 
the Negroes and Mongols with believing. All Christian 
communities have sanctioned, and sometimes sanctified, 
these absurd superstitions. 

The anthropologist, who has to do with science and not 
with theology, who has to seek the pure element in the 
inferior religions, ought not, on the other hand,- to hesitate 
in pointing out that singular admixture of alloy in the 
superior religions, of which I have just quoted a familiar 
example. 

From this double form of investigation, a general fact, 
to which I have often called attention, will, I think, be estab- 
lished in the minds of all, a fact which may be formulated 
in the following terms ; great or small, religions are prin- 
cipally connected by the most elevated and the lowest 
element possessed by each ; they are principally separated by 
intermediary forms and conceptions. 

VIII. The following fact has, in several instances, been 
remarked, that a religion when replaced by another, leaves 
upon the latter more or less evident traces. Often also, the 



Religions Characters. 497 

divinities of the former, without entirely disappearing, will 
undergo a singular process of degradation, and find a place 
only in the region of popular superstition. Which of our 
readers will not call to mind the articles, at once so charming 
and so impressive, of M. Heine upon the poor gods of the 
Greek and Roman Olympus, passed into legendary characters \ 
These representatives of classical mythology have, in the 
heart of popular beliefs, become associated with Germanic 
and Scandinavian divinities ; but have not both had pre- 
decessors ? 

From Quaternary ages to the present time, many races 
have inhabited Europe. None, undoubtedly, have entirely 
passed away. They have been successively subjugated, 
and more or less absorbed. Can the beliefs even of our 
most remote ancestors be entirely lost ? I think not. Un- 
doubtedly, a portion has been forgotten, but very probable 
also a large part has survived, more or less modified by the 
additions of each fresh immigration. In this manner would 
be formed, little by little, that popular mythology which has 
resisted all official doctrines, and even found a place by their 
side. 

What has happened in our own case cannot but have 
happened elsewhere. Future research will perhaps show 
this to be the cause of the common element of the religious 
beliefs of peoples, separated by their different degrees of 
civilization, as well as by geographical position. 

IX. M. Burnouf has remarked that the science of religion 
does not as yet exist. This is true, especially from the point 
of view to which I have just called attention. All general 
classification is, then, premature. Before attempting one, let 
us wait till we are at least fairly acquainted, not only with 
the great mass of doctrines supported by profound meta- 
physics, which have been accepted by civilized nations, but 
also with the simpler, more artless beliefs which preceded 
them, some of which are still in existence. Then only shall 
we be in a position to trace the general form and the sub- 
divisions of the several manifestations of the religious faculty 



49 8 The Human Species, 

common to all human beings. Then, also, we shall be in a 
position to follow the development of this faculty, and to 
mark its stages, by a process similar to that of the em- 
bryogenist, who studies the different phases undergone by 
the same being before attaining its state of perfection. 

Such as it is however, consisting at present of isolated 
facts only, or of facts merely collected into groups, the science 
of religions has already acquired a marked importance in 
anthropology. It leaves no doubt as to one of the funda- 
mental characters of the human species ; it furnishes facts of 
so independent a nature as to serve for the characterization 
of races ; it reveals relations ; it adds its testimony to that of 
philology in throwing light upon the filiation of certain races, 
in attesting the existence of ancient communications between 
nations long regarded as entirely separate. In these various 
aspects it should not be neglected by those who wish to 
consider the natural history of man as a whole. 



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